putin
nly 40p.
Ira the beat selling weekly
|
Vol 4 No 10
| Soft famine aid
SOFT AID, the computing
equivalent of the music indus-
trie's Ethiopian famine relief
appeal is now available
Proceeds from sales of the
cassette - a compilation of
games from top software
houses — will go to the Bob
Geldof Band Aid Ethiopian
Appeal Fund.
‘The tape is being sold from
most major retail outlets. "We
would hope to sell over
20,000 units each for Spec-
trum and Commodore 64,"
said Rod Cousens, of
Quicksilva, who organised
the Soft Aid appeal. "1 hope
that'll turn out to be a conser-
vative estimate, АШ the pro-
ceeds from sales are going to
Bob Geldof's appeal through
the Band Aid trust, and I'm
confident that all the pro-
ceeds will reach the famine
victims directly.”
The tape which has been
produced for the Spectrum
and Commodore 64, contains
the following game titles:
Commodore Gumshoe
(АЕ, ^ Beam | Rider
(Activision), Star Trader (Bug
PRICELESS GEM? - p14
Byte), Gyropod (Taskset)
China Miner (Interceptor)
Kokotoni Wif (Elite),
Gilligan's Gold (Ocean), Fred
(Quicksilva), Falcon Patrol
(Virgin) and Flak (US Gold).
Spectrum: Ant Attack
Continued on page 4 >
Is Sinclair’s
Spectrum +
up-grade kit
worth £20?
Find out p13
Acorn indicates
new direction
ACORN has denied reports
that it is to pull out of the home
computer market, although
production of its Electron is
unlikely to be restarted for
the foreseeable future
Dr Alexander Кейі,
Acorn's new chairman and
acting chief executive, fol-
lowing the Olivetti rescue a
fortnight ago (see Popular
Computing Weekly, Febru-
ary 28) said: "We will be
continuing to sell the Electron
this year and hopefully next
year as well.
“Whether we will go into
production on the Electron
again or not will depend on
our sales level during the
year."
The company now plans
also to sell the Electron in at
least two special packs, bun-
dling the machine with extra
hardware and software.
One package contains the
processor, and Plus 1 inter-
face with joysticks, software
and introductory ` books,
aimed at the games player.
A second consists of the
micro and Plus 3 add-on,
which comprises the disc in-
terface and disc drives, for
the more serious user.
"We feel we have a very
strong presence at the top
Dr Alexander Reid
end of the home market with
the BBC and Electron micros —
£129 for the Electron is a very
good price," added Alexan-
der Reid.
Continued on page 4 >
INSIDE) AMSTRAD COMPO ) GHOSTBUSTERS INTERVIEW.)
{о Pl
А New Breed
Challenging software from Viper.
Se
BELLUM
of dangerous flying over enemy territory!
mission is to deliver an essential cargo of
Help Fiona continue h of terror ove Indian Teo to the Officers Club by tea fime today.
the sleepy village of Montfort. Smooth scrolling oll-action arcade game.
C64 C64 ATARI (disc only)
лы کرک رک ر
ULTRON
Play with Firet The greatest animated graphic adventure yel,
The best shoot ‘em up, ever written for the ВВС. with over 70 screens to discover and conquer.
sic BBC ELECTRON
N ,
Consolidated Software Marketing Ltd.
Eardley House, 182/184 Campden Hill Road, London W8 7AS Tel: 01-221 3592
V i е
oftware conversions -
S: they worth it?
These days most new
Computer tiles are pro-
duced on more than one ma-
chine - US Cold, for exam-
ple, last week announced an
ambitious programme of
conversions of its American
Commodore 64 titles to the
Spectrum,
‘The logic as far as the soft-
ware house is concerned is
obvious. Once it has estab-
lished a top selling program
on one machine, versions on
other machines will sell off
the back of the hit title alone.
The big snag with conver-
sions, though, is that, since
different machines have dif-
ferent strengths and weak-
nesses, the conversions are,
therefore, not always as
good as the original.
This is particularly tue
with arcade titles. Very often
they are written to stretch the
micro to its limits of graphics
and speed. Take that title
across to another machine
and it may just not be possi-
ble to achieve the same kind
of effects, Imagine, for exam-
ple, the difficulties of con-
verting Knight Lore or Fire-
bird's Gyron for the
Commodore 64 - it wouldn't
be easy. An example of the
converse would Ье
Ghostbusters: great on the
64, rather muted on the Spec-
trum. Elite on the 64 is a
faithful conversion from the
BBC, but it runs a good deal
slower. Often, too, the new
versions are written by dif-
ferent authors, which doesn't
help.
Although there are excep-
tions (Virgin's Scorcery con-
version from the C64 to the
Amstrad programs are
nearly always more success-
ful on the machines for which
they were first written,
The original is nearly al-
ways the best.
Vol 4 No 10
WEEKLY
Presents... ,
News > QL software boost
Streetlife > Ghostbusters — Christina Er-
skine meets the man behind the game =
behind the film — David Crane 4
Hardware Review > John Cochrane does almost по soldering
at all to produce a Spectrum Plus
Special Feature > Gems and Wimps - the future of home
micros? Andy Pennell explains what all the clicking is about
Stargame > Lightcycle for the Sinclair QL by Philip Sproston of
Quantum Soft
Competition > Answer 3 questions - and
13
14
16
Lm
you could win 3-D Starstrike from Realtime 1 8 +
Software P
Software Reviews > Beyond's Lords of А
Midnight on the CBM64 > Castle Quest by 20
MicroPower on BBC B ж
Programming > Раш Tolman shows you how to speed up Basic
programs
Spectrum > Loading from microdrive made easy on the
Spectrum 48K
Amstrad > Part Two of Poker on the CPC 464 brought to you by
Terry O'Neil 42
Best of the Rest > Letters 9 > Commodore 64 26 > BBC and Electron 38 >
Dragon 40 > Open Forum 45 > Music Box 45 > Book Ends 47 > Arcade Ave-
nue 51 > Adventure Corner 52 > Peek & Poke 55 > Top Ten, Diary, Readers
Chart 62 > New Releases 63 > This Week 63 > Puzzle, Ziggurat, Hackers 66
Futures...
Computers in control - Build your own robot for under #20.
atthe Zero 2
31
a detailed look
Балы Dav Капу Mawa alo Christina Erskine Features editor Graham Taylor Sofware editor Jonn Cook Production adlar Lynne Constable БА esereary Geraldine
manager ‘Assistant advertisement от Wa
Smyth Group advertisement man:
vis Advertising
—
4
t London Wi
56062 copies sold every week
(Jan-June 1984 ABC).
David Lake Advertisement,
Production Lucinda Lee Administrat anaging ishing land.
о 213 Linie Newport Stee London WORN JPP. Тө O 4543 Telex 2352 Typeset by Publahers Поста Servicos it,
Tinted Distributed
р,
ee
Alastair Macintosh. ‘on Classified executive Diano Da
ion Thoresa Lacy Mi ditor Duncan Scot Publishing director Jenny V
by Greenaway Harrison, Sutton Road, Southend-on-sea, Essex 5 М Distribution, London SWS,
How to submit articles Articles which are submitted for publication should not be more than 2000 words long. Тһе
articles, and any accompanying programs, should be original. It is breaking the law о! copyright to copy programs
ош of other magazines and submit them here — so please do not be tempted. Accuracy Popular Computing Weekly
cannot accept any responsibility for any errors in programs we publish, although we will always try our best to
make sure programs work
Computer Trade Association Magazine of the Year
7-13 MARCH 1985
77”
News Desk
SINCLAIR's QL exhibition
drew 24 companies to the
London Hilton last week to
demonstrate around 50 new
software and hardware
products.
Most of the software an-
nounced comprised utility
products - Computer One's
OL Pascal, QL Forth, QL Mon-
itor, QL Assembler and ОБ
Typing Tutor, for example.
Metacomco also had a wide
range of utilities: Assembler
Development Kit, BCPL De-
velopment Kit and a LISP De-
velopment Ки. Adder Pub-
lishing also entered this field
with QL Toolkit and
Debugger.
Graphics packages were
also very popular, Talent
showed its Graphic ОБ prod-
uct (£34.98) which is based on
Panorama(H), Talent's hi-res
graphics program for the
Commodore 64. The facilities
on GraphicQL include free-
hand drawing, а user-defin-
able paintbrush of any width
or colour option, re-colour-
ing, airbrush effects, magnifi-
cation, and a printer dump
facility. Text can be used with.
pictures, and the graphics in-
corporated іп the user's own
programs, Talent is also plan-
ning a microdrive cartridge
50 products at QL show
Doctor package at £21.95,
which will enable the user to
retrieve data from corrupted
cartridges
Eidersoft showed a number
of graphics products. QL Art
is a suite of five programs —
Artist gives а cursor-con-
trolled drawing board, en-
largement and reduction of
pictures, and hi-res printer
dumps. Calligrapher allows
the user to design their own
character set, Windos creates
windows on-screen, Logo
Graphics gives turtle graph-
ics facilities, and File Manag-
er allows you to manipulate
graphics files easily. OL Art
costs £14.95.
Games, however, were thin
оп the ground. Talent showed
West and Zkul, the two text
adventures launched before
Christmas and Psion's Chess
package was also demon-
strated. СР Software
launched a conversion of its
Bridge Player program at
£18.98, CP's next QL release
will be Backgammon.
Sagesoft's ОШ Accounts
program, Accounting Soft-
ware's Cash Trader, and
‘Triptych’s Project Planner,
Entrepreneur, and Decision
Maker, all announced at Janu-
arys Which Computer?
Avalon’s sequel out soon
DRAGONTORC of Avalon is
the latest release from
Hewson Consultants, the se-
quel to Avalon.
‘The game, released for the
Spectrum, shows the same
graphic techniques as its pre-
decessor, but Hewson has in-
cluded a feature it calls senso-
ry animation, whereby the
main character interacts with
others, such as elves and
goblins, to manipulate them
and win them over.
The plot involves prevent-
ing Morag, the Witch Queen
of the North, from using the
powerful Dragontorc to
achieve her evil ambitions -
Ав with Avalon, the charac-
ters are joystick-controlled.
Dragontorc costs £1.95, and
will be available by the end of
this month.
Show, were all on show.
Ол the peripherals side,
disc drives were shown from
a variety of companies - Мі-
cro Peripherals, Medic Data
Systems, CST and Quest. Mi-
cro Peripherals also showed
alaser printer.
® A new company, Digital
Precision, which did not at-
tend Sinclair's exhibition, has
also announced a number of
software packages for the QL,
including a sprite generator.
ОЬ Super Sprite Generator
allows 18 different sprites to
be on-screen simultaneously,
each sprite can have up to 16
different shapes to simulate
motion, and 256 different
planes to simulate depth. Col-
lision detection is automatic.
The user controls and devel-
ops the sprites using
keywords from within
SuperBasic. The program
compiles the instructions into
machine-code automatically.
The package costs £19.98.
Digital Precision has also
launched QL Super Backgam-
mon at £18.95, and QL Super
Monitor at £18.95. Details
from Digital Precision, 91,
Manor Road, London ЕТ.
Soft Aid
4 continued from page 1
(Quicksilva), Sorcery (Vir
gin), Kokotoni Wilf (Elite)
Horace Goes Skiing (Mel-
bourne House), Spellbound
(Beyond), Star Bike (The
Edge), The Pyramid (Fanta-
sy), Gilligan's Gold (Ocean),
3D Tank Duel (Realtime), and.
Jack and the Beanstalk (Thor).
The hit song Do They Know
It's Christmas, by Band Rid, is
also featured on both sides of
the tape.
Software houses, those іп-
volved with production dupli-
cation and distributors have
agreed to waive their normal
profit margins on the cassette.
Soft Aid costs £4.99 for both
Spectrum and Commodore 64
versions.
© Units sold іп W H Smith's
chain of stores will have a
‘flash’ sticker added to the
cassette front. W H Smith ex-
pressed reservations over
the cover picture of Soft Aid,
and requested that the fact
that proceeds were going to-
wards famine relief should be
mentioned on the cover be-
fore they would sell it. A suit-
able sticker has now been
printed, and Soft Aid should
be available in W H Smith's
shops by the end of this week.
01-437 4343
US Gold’s
catalogue
expands
US GOLD has announced its
new releases for this spring
and summer. Among them
are conversions for Spec-
trum, Amstrad, BBC and MSX,
and the first products in its
‘Famous Faces’ and ‘All
American Adventures’
series.
The only ‘Famous Расе’
signed up so far is Conan,
from the film Conan the Bar-
barian, which should be
available this week for Com-
modore 64 and Atari on disc.
at £14.95. Conversions to oth-
er machines are expected.
continued on page 5 №
Acorn's new
direction
4 continued from page 1
He also confirmed that
com's consumer division
would be producing further
micros under the BBC label.
"We will be bringing out im-
proved versions of the BBC
this year." However, he de-
clined to say whether these
would be modifications to the
existing Model B, or a new
machine.
Acorn's ABC range is also
being redefined in terms of
its target market. Production
of the machines now comes
under the company's Scientif-
ic and Industrial branch.
“There will be a change of
tack with the ABCs, as they
will not be aimed at the gen-
eral business market. We are
looking closely at the eight
models which currently make
up the series, some may be
changed, and some new ones
may be adde.
Оп the business side,
Acron is to act as an original
equipment manufacturer for
other companies. "The Com-
municator will become а та.
jor focal point of Acorn's
range. The advanced com-
puter project being devel-
oped in Palo Alto for 1986-87
is also included here."
Dr Reid stressed that his
role as acting chief executive
with Acorn was temporary.
Acorn is hoping to appoint а
new permanent managing di-
rector as soon as possible.
a
POPULAR COMPUTING WEEKLY
News Desk
Network suppliers buy Prism modems
PRISM'S range of Viewdata
products is now available
again from a company named
Modem House.
Modem House has bought
existing stocks of the Prism
VTX1000 and 2000 modems,
and has undertaken to fully
support the Prism label, fol-
lowing Prism's financial col-
lapse last month (see Popular
Computing Weekly, Febru-
ary 7).
"We wil be seling the
modems at special offer
prices (ог about twelve
weeks to begin with," ex-
plained Keith Rose, Modem
House's marketing director
“Тһе VTX 5000 will start off at
£49.95 and that price includes
a free quarterly subscription
to Micronet 800 and Viewfax.
"The Modem 1000 will cost
£59.95 and the Modem 2000
£69.95, again as special offer
prices. When» stocks are
cleared we hope to continue
production if OE, the manu-
facturers, are receptive."
Modem House's main field
of business is supplying net-
work and viewdata packages
for business use. This move
marks its entry into the home
market.
Details on the Prism range
from Modem House, lolanthe
Drive, Exeter, Devon, EX4
ЭЕА. (0392 68295).
US Gold
4 continued from page 4
The ‘All American Adven.
tures’ will be in the shops
later, mid to late-April for the
first title, Exodus, Ultima ШІ,
and early May for Wizard and
the Princess.
"This is a much bigger ver-
sion of Wizard and the Prin-
cess than the one brought out
by Melbourne House for the
Vic 20,” said Tim Chaney of
US Gold.
Included in the Spectrum
conversions are Solo Flight,
Raid over Moscow, Bruce Lee
and Beachhead П. Beachhead
1 and П, Raid over Moscow
and Bruce Lee are also now
available for the Amstrad
CPC 464. Four titles, Grogs
Revenge, Whirlynurds, Boun-
ty Bob Strikes Back and
Dambusters are to be con-
verted to Spectrum, CPC 464,
BBC and MSX.
@ US Gold is currently in
dispute with GB Gold, a soft-
ware company set up by
Preston-based distributors
Vanguard Leisure.
Apart from the similarity in
the names of the two compa-
nies, US Gold is claiming that
the logo and lettering used by
GB Gold is very similar to йз
own.
“US Gold is objecting to us
using the name GB Gold,”
said Brian Simpson, who
heads Vanguard's software
venture. "We don't see that
we're doing anything drasti-
cally wrong - when we
thought of the name, the idea
was to complement US Gold,
but promoting original British
software.
А preliminary hearing was
due to be held in court earlier
this week.
01-437 4343
Ram extension
launched
for C16
А NORWICH-based compa-
ny, Micro Component Trad-
ing, has produced a 64K Ram
extension for the Cl6. The
company claims that the extra
Ram will ensure that any soft-
ware designed specifically
for the Plus/4 will run on the
modified C16.
“Тһе extension fits inside
the computer,” explained
Dave Viner of Micro Compo-
nent Trading. "АШ you have
to do is remove one chip from
inside, insert the board, and
replace the chip. This also
leaves the cartridge port
free." However, he was not
sure how this operation
would affect the quarantee on
the computer.
The Ram expansion - which
costs £59.95 - will leave
around 60.5K free to Basic in
text mode and a little more
than 48K free in high-res
graphics mode.
Details from Micro Compo-
nent Trading, Group House,
Fishers Lane, Norwich, NR2
1ET. (0603 666966)
Get some unbiased advice
about cassette duplication
“We have traditionally been a quality software house, DataClone have y a quality
duplicator— we have used them for the last three years with complete satisfaction." MICROPOWER.
“We produced over 1/2 million units with them in 1984 and we're still good friends.”
DORLING KINDERSLEY.
“Competitive pricing, fast turnaround and a very reliable product — what more could we ask for."
BEAU JOLLY.
“DataClone have produced high quality, trouble free products and an excellent service all round.
We would recommend them to any company producing software.”
BOURNE EDUCATIONAL SOFTWARE.
“Our orders before Christmas exceeded our expectations. DataClonc cured the production problem
with time to spare!” TANSOFT.
Other services include printing, packaging, packaging design and disc duplication.
Agents for Novaload and Powerload Fast Systems for the Commodore 64 and Spectrum 48K
machines.
DATACLONE
Unit 1, Roslin Square, Roslin Road, London W3 SDH.
Telephone: 01-993 2134. Telex: 21879.
7-13 MARCH 1985 5
Well take you bey
QUICKSHOT И AUTO RAPID-FIRE JOYSTICK | `
-—-------«-«--53
ond the Spectrum.
Four great new add-ons from Ram, Number One in
‘everything for the Spectrum...
TURBO INTERFACE
Our unique Turbo Interface outperforms any Spectrum
interface — it works with ROM cartridges, 2 standard joysticks,
and there's а full expansion bus at the rear. The Turbo supports
Kempston, Protek and Interface 2 software and loads from
cassette — or instantly from a ROM cartridge. It really makes.
the most of the Quickshot 115 rapid-fire action, and with a
unique built-in power safety device, it's amazing value at
just £22.95.
QUICKSHOT Il AUTO RAPID-FIRE JOYSTICK
The famous Quickshot Il is the top games joystick, with a
sleek trigger fire button for quick reactions, an auto fire switch
for continuous shooting and a new, improved grip.
Revolutionary built-in stabilising suction cups mean a sure, firm
grip—a snip at £9.95.
SPECTRUM INTERFACE
Boost the power of your Spectrum, or Spectrum +
This Kempston-compatible interface gets the most from your
games — electrify your enemies with real power and
lightning-fast reactions right under your fingertips.
Costs just £9.95.
SPECTRUM UPGRADE KIT
Ifyou've a 16K Spectrum micro, this handy and
inexpensive add-in kit boosts the RAM memory to a powerful
48K, so you can run the latest and greatest software, the most
exciting games around — and expand your own programming,
possibilities! Only £21.95.
Where can you get your hands on Ram's amazing
Spectrum add-ons? You can see them at branches of Boots,
Menzies, Spectrum Group computer centres, and good
computer stores every where. Or return the coupon below.
To: RAM Electronics (Fleet) Ltd (Dept Pc 106 Fleet
Road, Fleet, Hampshire 6013 8PA.
Credit Card hot line: 02514 25252. (Access & Visa).
а
Г Pease sendme
| Spectrum Turbo Interfaces) at £22.95
Quickshot Il Joystick] at £9.95.
Spectrum Interface(s) at £9.95,
— — — Spectrum Upgrade Kit(s) at £21.95.
(Please state ssue20 of 30)
+1 per order P+ P (£3 Overseas) TOTAL £
Clenclose cheque/postal order O charge my Access/Visa
EXZI ECL LEETE
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Telephone Е:
24 Hour despatch or credit cards and postal orders (7 days lor cheques)
Pl products are fuly compatible with the Spectrum, Spectrum +
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Ram Dectroncs Feet Ltd (Dept FCW | 106 iet Road. Fee Hampshire GUI3 PA.
"Trade and export enquiries welcome
е BATTLE STRATEGY PROGRAM FOR YOUR CBM 64
© KEYBOARD OR JOYSTICK
CONTROL
© REALISTIC HELICRAFT
CONTROLS
ЗФ 350° SCROLLING SCREEN
Ф UNLIMITED MISSILES & FUEL
SUPPLY
Ф RADAR SCREEN
© DAMAGE REPORTS & BOMB
LEVEL REPORTS
Риз ENEMY BATTLESHIP STATUS
REPORTS & BOMBER ATTACK
WARNINGS
"Hound the action very fast and furious, especially when being
attacked by jet fighters firing heat-seeking missiles. It really
gets the adrenalin going . . . Superb graphics that we have
come to expect from USA imports. The attractive packaging
and first class presentation add up to а truly professional
Tom Hussey
Serious
limitation
have discovered a serious
limitation with the ‘соег-
cion' facility on the QL.
While trying to copy the
graph program in the Spec-
trum manual I came upon a
problem with the difference
between the Val command
and ‘coercion’.
The examples below illus-
trate what I mean.
Оп the Spectrum:
10 LET A$ ="54*34/10"
20 LET А = VALA$
30 PRINT A
gives the value of 183.6.
‘The equivalent program in
SuperBasic should be:
10 LET A$ = “54*34/10"
20 LET A= AS
30 PRINT А
‘The snag is that when Run it
gives a value of 54.
Тһе QL appears only to ac-
cept numbers in string ex-
pressions and not operators
or functions as Val does.
Does anyone know if there
is any way on the QL of input-
ting а function as a string and
then converting it into a nor-
mal variable?
D Walker
30 Rennishaw Way
Links View
Northampton NN2 INE
Correct
information
8 the authors of the
Psion's Spectrum Chess
title, we were naturally inter-
ested in P. Mellor's problem
with the program (February
14 issue).
Upon investigation, it
would appear that when set-
ting up the board he indicat-
ed that his Pawn had not pre-
viously moved, when in fact it
had. If the correct information
is supplied to the computer,
the program responds with
an entirely different move.
Andy Lawrie
Technical Director
Mikro-Gen
23a Station Road
Ashford
Middx
Illegal
move
was interested to read of P.
Mello's Psion Chess
problem.
During a game of Psion
Chess on a ZX81, the machine
moved a knight to where it
7-13 MARCH 1985
could be taken by a diagonal
When I tried to capture the
knight, the program rejected
the move as illegal.
Walter Murray
58 Norfolk Road
Upminster
Essex
Load of
rubbish
ndy Lawrie of Mikro-Gen
(letter, February 21) is, 1
think, а QL basher. The 68000
is the best microprocessor on
the market and the QL is only
the start of the 88000 micros.
As for learning a new pro-
cessor in two days - what а
load of rubbish! You cannot
learn any new chip in two
days - no way. 18 Mr Lawrie
an Alien (8)!
Chris Powell
16 Edward Street
Oswestry
Shropshire
Money
thrown away
have been waiting since
the arrival of Underwurlde
and Knight Lore for Ultimate
to release its next Spectrum
title Alien 8.
When it was released today
I bought it immediately and
now 1 feel that 1 have thrown
my money away. The game is
a direct copy - except for the
redefined graphics - of
Knight Lore. It seems Ultimate
has fallen into the ‘let's copy
our successful game’ trap and
Spectrum owners must suffer
for it.
David McFadyen
35 Longford Court
Bell Lane
London NW4 2BU
—
Italian
rumour
з there any truth in the
Tumour that the Anglo/Ital-
jan company responsible for
the BBC micro and the Elec-
tron is to be renamed
Acornetto?
lan Martin
10 Taranto НШ
Dchester
Yeovil
Somerset
Program
transfer
wish to correct your edito-
rial piece which stated that
baud modem into а 300 baud
version.
This is not possible due to
ет, allow you to use 1200/78
Bullitin boards (such as the
Опе run by the Open Univer-
sity for its students) and the
program displays at least
three numbers of such
boards.
They do not, however, use
Prestel, so that is why the new
joftware is г
‘The program also provides
program transfer with error
checking to and from the
board, plus, all control char-
acters can be sent. The re-
sults can be sent to
microdrive or tape and
screenful’s can be dumped to
a ZX printer.
London N16 7NL
Woefully
lacking
aving just read Ziggurat
'column in the February
14 edition, 1 am writing to say
that Mike Grace is not alone in
his problems with Act
documentation.
Like you, I recently üp-
graded from a humble Spec-
trum to an Act as it appeared.
to me (and still does) to be the
best machine on the market in
the 16-bit processor field.
Also like you, however, I was
very disappointed by the
general level of information
Given in the literature accom-
panyíng the computer.
Information as to how the
discs supplied were to be
MICRONET
COUPON?
used and what various things
did was, unfortunately, woe-
fully lacking.
The reason for these short-
comings is presumably that
the manufacturers assume
that their computers will only
be used by people with no
interest in taking advantage
of two thirds of the facilities,
and will only wish to run
packages. Even the method
of using Setup to change the
default settings of the ma-
chine is not properly
explained.
Unlike the more widely-
used machines, no one seems
to have brought out an idiot's.
guide to the Apricot. A shame
really as these are the gener-
ation of machines that enthusi-
asts are moving towards.
Tam about to start using my
machine with a modem во that
Ican go looking in the bulletin
boards for other Apricot
users.
Clive Billenness
131 Hicks Avenue
Greenford
Middx
Below
the buffer
ith regard to S G
Young's enquiry in
Peek & Poke (January 17 is-
sue) who found problems
with programs running when
the Currah speech unitis con-
nected - | may have the
answer.
The Currah Microspeech
sets up a buffer at the top 286.
bytes of Ram when connect-
ed. If you have a program
written in machine-code with
bytes at the top of Ram it
overwrites and the program
crashes.
Consequently, any та-
chine-code must be located
below the buffer that
Microspeech uses - either
that or the Currah unit must
be disconnected.
John Durst
Swerford
Oxon
Street Life
The bank buster
Christina Erskine talks to David Crane of
Activision
ith Ghostbusters continuing to
top the charts on both its Com-
modore 64 and Spectrum edi-
tions, its designer and writer David
Grane slipped into this country for a
couple of days during the LET Show.
David commands the sort of status in the
US that Jeff Minter and Matthew Smith do
over here; he has carved out a selective
kind of fame for himself and his
creations,
While Commodore 64 users will prob-
ably know David as the author of
Ghostbusters, - primarily - Pitfall and
Decathlon, David actually has around ten
titles under his belt, and was a founder
member of Activision five years ago.
1 went to see David at Activision's
London headquarters - the offices are
pretty spacious, but David, at six foot,
managed to make them look quite pok-
ey. Somehow he just doesn't look like
what a computer programmer is sup-
posed to look like. How'd it happen?
“I was always very keen on electron-
ics at High School in Indiana - took lots
of extra courses in computing and elec-
tronics, so 1 could program fluently in
three different languages by the time I
left. It really started when I designed a
tic-tac-toe playing computer when I was
about thirteen." Tick-tac-toe, incidental-
ly, is American for Noughts and Crosses.
‘After college David worked for an
electronics firm, designing microchips.
A friend, who was developing video
games for Atari, tried to convince David
that this was what he should be doing.
"I was suspicious of the idea, because
all that programming involved didn't
appeal. But then, I thought, well, games
designing sounds like fun, so I took the
job.
"Now people tend to be quite envious
when 1 tell them I play and write games
for a living. Especially, when I tell them
that I judge how well I've done on the
game, by how much I enjoy playing it."
After two years with Atari, David
helped start up Activision, and contin-
ued writing a number of games for the
Atari VCS system - Dragster, Laser
Blast, Grand Prix among them.
“I usually spend about eight months
writing a program, and about half of that
time is spent on the finishing touches and
debugging. But with such a long devel-
opment time, it means I have to look
ahead to what will be innovative in a
year's time.
“For instance when everyone was
bringing out space attack games - and
Гуе written quite a few of those —1 would
have to look elsewhere for my next idea,
because by the time it was finished space
games would be out of fashion. I've now
programmed just about every type of
game - except
adventures.
But race
games, driv-
ing games,
space games,
arcade strate-
gy, yes. The
olher соп-
straint | have
is that ГЇЇ nev-
er do two of
the same for-
mat in a row,
or get bored
with the
repetition."
With Ghostbusters, however, David
broke several of his previous traditions.
“For a start, 1 was told I had six weeks
to do the game. I said there were was no
way 1 could do an entire game іп six
weeks, so for the first time, we involved
other people in the project and it be-
came a team effort. Usnally at Activision,
a project із one person's from start to
finish. However, the team idea worked
зо well on Ghostbusters that 1 reckon
we'll do that for all the future programs.”
Part of Ghostbusters is in fact a quite
different game David was working on
before he took on the project
“Before the movie came out, 1 had
been playing around on screen with an
idea for a game. I had a car, viewed from
above, travelling through various
streets, and a screen whereby you could
load the car with weapons with a fork-lift
truck. I thought maybe the weapons
could be used against various baddies
the car came across in the streets.
“Unbeknownst to me, Activision was
talking to Columbia Pictures about
Ghostbusters even then.
“When I was told Activision was going
to do the Ghostbusters game, and that it
had to be done in six weeks, I was lucky.
T'd just seen the movie, and I realised
straight away that I should be able to
work my car in the streets screens to fit
into the game somewhere. I went to see
the movie again the night I was asked,
and then it was head down to get it
worked out from then on.
"T sat down with the Ghostbusters
brief, and got the gist of the game de-
fined on the first day. Firstly I had some
useful screens, secondly I had to con-
struct something similar to the movie
and using features from it, 1 had to add
some comic overtones to tie in with the
humour of the movie, and I wanted to
design something that would stand up on
its own, with or without the movie tie-up.
“I tried to get the humour in with
things like the ghost vacuums and
marshmallow sensors.
"I wanted to use the movie's theme
music to run through the game, which
wasn't too difficult. Then 1 felt that if we
could include the lyrics from Ray Parker
Jnr's hit, it would add another fun ele-
ment to the program, and that’s where
the bouncing ball came in.
The speech synthesis, however, is not
David's, but done by a separate compa-
ny, Electronic Speech Systems, based in
Berkeley in California, “Again, the main
reason we used it was that it was another
aspect of the fun in the game; also we felt
it was valuable in order to demonstrate
that you can implement that quality of
speech in a computer дате,"
So how does David intend to follow an
act like Ghostbusters? “1 honestly don't
know at the moment - I haven't got a
game in development at present. I'm
trying to promote this team format we
used for Ghostbusters within Activision,
so that we can do it on future release:
Whatever I do next, it'll be another
product in the entertainment software
field, although the concept of entertain-
ment is broadening widely.
Presumably any future work by David
will be influenced the US hardware mar-
ket - how popular the new Atari and
Commodore machines prove, for exam-
ple? “Well, I don't know about that.
Activision has the advantage of being a
software only company. While 1 feel that
long term there is a growth market for
computers, I really don't care which
companies are battling for shares.
"The C128 is said to be a Commodore
64 with extra features, but if Activision
produce games for it using those fea-
tures, we ought to try to do it so that it
could run on the 64 as well, because of its
huge user base.
"As for the new Ataris, well, I'll Бе-
lieve them when I see them. There is one
hell of a lot of rubber-gloved respect for
Jack Tramiel in the States, and there's no
doubtthere has to be а good market for a
machine with the power of a Mac at a
third of the price.”
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They are therefore most
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ي
Hardware Review
Spectrum Diy
Hardware Spectrum Upgrade Kit
Micro Sinclair Spectrum Price £20
Manufacturer Sinclair Research
Ltd, Upgrade Department, Stanhope
Road, Camberley, Surrey 6015 3Р5
he first Sinclair kit that 1 put to-
Тт: had nearly 90 parts and
took me the best part of 3 long
evenings to complete. That was the 2Х81
which, with the ZX80 (126 parts), made
Sinclair Research a company worth talk-
ing about and brought home computing
prices down to a level that even I could
afford. Now Sinclair is back in the kit
business offering a cheap upgrade from
Spectrum to Spectrum Plus.
The Spectrum Upgrade Kit has only 30
parts, and that includes everything,
screws (10) to hold the thing together,
documentation and a software cassette
(four parts) the Plus casing complete
with rubber feet and fold-down legs (10
parts), three small foam pads to protect
the keyboard leads, and the three new
circuit components which may need to
be fitted. Just three components to
change, this kit is just not in the same
league. It took me half an hour to com-
plete my upgrade and in the end I only
had to use two components, only one of
those requiring soldering.
The most important item in апу kit is
the instruction sheet. 1 find it very diffi-
cult to fault the one that accompanies the
Upgrade kit; it is very clear and com-
plete. There are slightly different things
to do depending on which issue Spec-
trum you have. Issues 1 and 2 have a
metal heatsink which is slightly too big to
fit inside the Spectrum Plus case. An
alternative, cut-down, heatsink is pro-
vided in the kit which must be bolted into
Place. This is the first of those three
components and is no trouble to fix, so
long аз you have at least three hands, Be
careful when fitting the heatsink to get it
correctly positioned on the circuit
board. If it is twisted too far it can short
some of the other circuitry.
Soldering on
A reset switch is the first, and possibly
only, thing to require soldering. The
important thing to remember when sol-
dering, especially when you do not do it
very often, is to take things slowly and
carefully.
Some tips if you have not done much
soldering ~ make sure the soldering iron
has а secure stand ( the top of a table will
по! do), keep the tip clean using a small
damp sponge, shake off excess solder
(using the sponge, don't flick molten
solder on the carpet), use flux-cored
solder sparingly. To solder a single joint
you may need the help of someone else.
Soldering iron in one hand, solder in the
other, the friend holds the joint together
using say a pair of long-nosed pliers to
keep from getting burned fingers.
Apply a very small amount of solder to
the iron before you start, this cleans the
tip a little and will also help to heat up ће
joint when the iron is touched against it.
Hold the tip of the iron gently against the
complete joint for perhaps а second then
touch the solder against the joint and tip
ofthe iron. The solder should melt rapid-
real problems Sinclair will charge £10 to
sort them out for you.
А couple of further observations on
the finished article. There is a problem
running some Kempston hardware and
maybe others, so it is probably worth
making a few phone calls to the manufac-
turers if you are worried. Interface 1 fits
the Spectrum Plus casing but not quite ав
well as onto the old Spectrum, and you
ly and flow over the
joint. Don't put too
much solder on, as it
is very difficult to
remove. Take away |
the solder and the
iron without dis-
turbing the joint and
wait a few seconds
for the melted sol-
der to cool and so-
lidity. The joint
should be complete
now, clean, neat,
and strong.
One point to
watch for with the
reset switch is the
length of the leads.
The switch fits on
the left-hand side of the Spectrum Plus
casing and the lead passes across to the
right-hand side of the circuit board. The
lead on my kit was only just long enough
to reach across my Issue 2 board, best
check yours before you solder it in.
Having fitted the reset switch it is time
to test the keyboard. There is a possibili-
ty that some of the keys, particularly the
Stop key will not work reliably, in which
case a resistor (the third component that
I mentioned above) will have to be sol-
dered into place. This is a bit more fiddly
than the reset switch and you will need a
steady hand, particularly if your Spec-
trum is an Issue 1. The circuit board із
now screwed into the new case.
Тһе rest is relatively straightforward,
no more soldering, just follow the in-
ИгисЧопз. Four rubber feet are pushed
into the bottom of the case. This is per-
haps the most awkward operation of the
whole job as the holes are small and the
feet have a life of their own.
Two fold-down feet slip into place
easily (make sure that they are the right
way round) and some self-adhesive foam
pads are required to protect the key-
board leads. The backing to these foam
ads was not well cut in my kit and was
difficult to remove.
Finally the keyboard is connected for
the last time and the top of the machine
screwed into place. And there you have
it, а Spectrum Plus. The Upgrade Kit
does involve a very small amount of
soldering but is otherwise quite straight-
forward. Allow yourself some time to
make up the kit, the trick is to think
carefully about each operation before
getting yourself їп а mess. The warranty
comes back into force once the upgrade
is completed satisfactorily. If you have
can't use the flip-down
microdrives connected.
Тһе keyboard itself seems well con-
structed but, although similar in design,
is not as comfortable to use as the QL
keyboard. The manual which comes with
the Upgrade Kit is not as comprehensive
as the old Spectrum Basic manual but is
good for first-time users.
In competition
But the Upgrade Kit is in competition
with other keyboard kits. How well does
it compare? The Dk'tronics keyboard
was on special offer at the recent ZX
microfair for only #8 more than the
Sinclair kit, so let's look at that. First no
soldering is required at all, although you
don't get a reset switch. The keyboard
casing is much larger and both the Spec-
trum and Interface 1 circuit boards fit
inside. I think the Spectrum Plus looks
the better of the two but is less comfort-
able to work with, The Spectrum Plus
provides 17 special keys for single key
press entry of commonly-used combina-
tions. Dk’tronics provides a separate
numerical pad of 12 keys, including
Delete and a decimal point.
The Sinclair Upgrade Kit is reasonably
simple and is cheaper than nearly any
other keyboard kit. It does not offer the
same feel to the keys as typewriter-type
independent keys but both offer а con-
siderable improvement over the stan-
dard Spectrum. The Upgrade Kit offers
more special keys than most others and
lastly, and rather importantly, the com-
pleted Spectrum Plus is still covered by
Sinclair's warranty.
John Cochrane
legs with
7-13 MARCH 1985
з
Special feature
A jewel in the crown
Andy Pennell holds Digital's Gem up to the light
һе announcement of the Atari ST
micros at the US CES show in
January has generated a great
amount of interest, both in the States and
in this country. Undoubtedly a lot of this
is because the Atari machines are to use
Digital Research's exciting new GEM
operating system, so as a preview Lused
a version of GEM running on an IBM PC
compatible.
GEM stands for Graphic Environment
Manager, and gives a machine a very
friendly interface with the user, in a
similar way to the Apple Macintosh. The
whole concept revolves around a
‘mouse’, which is a small box moved
around on a flat surface, such as the
desk, controlling a sort of cursor on the
screen. By moving the mouse to a certain
position, then pressing a button on it,
certain events take place, such as select-
ing from menus, or moving windows.
This is also known as a WIMP environ-
ment, standing for window, icon and
mouse programs.
Windows under GEM and the Mac are
rather different to windows on other
machines, as they can be freely moved
about the screen and have their size
changed under user control, and if one
gets covered up by another it will have
its contents re-drawn when exposed
again.
Icons are pictures or symbols shown
on the screen instead of words, and from
within a program, choices can also be
selected by menus, whose titles are
shown in a line at the top of the screen,
When the mouse is moved on to them, a
box containing all the choices (or icons)
is printed underneath, and moving the
mouse down the list and pressing the
button selects the item,
GEM menus differ from the Mac ones,
though I do now prefer the GEM method
— this difference may be due to the fact
that Apple is currently attempting to
place a patent on its method. In most
other respects GEM is a direct imitation
of the Mac user interface, a fact unasham-
edly admitted by DR, as the Mac has
established the standard for others to
follow.
For a machine to run GEM, it normally
requires a minimum of 256K Ram, disc
drives, а mouse, and a screen resolution
of 320 by 256, though it looks best with a
resolution of 512 horizontally. At the
moment it also requires MS- or PC-DOS
and an 8086 family processor, but the
Atari ST breaks a lot of these require-
ments. As GEM is in Rom on the Atari,
128K Ram can be used, and as it uses a
68000 processor, GEM has to be convert-
ed. However, as most of it written in C, a
high level language, conversion is not as
difficult as you may expect.
It is hard to imagine a GEM machine
using cassettes, especially with so much
Ram to save and load, but if the Atari disc
drive actually appears at the ludicrous
price of $100, then it shouldn't be a
restriction for very long. GEM will ap-
parently work with joysticks and even
cursor keys, but I wouldn't like to try it.
The Atari spec says that its mouse plugs
into one of the joystick ports - I only
hope it is a proportional joystick port, as
asimple switched port would be a waste,
and make GEM less useful.
Оп most machines, GEM sits on top of
the resident operating system. For ex-
ample, IBM clones run MS-DOS, which
sits on top of the low level OS in Rom.
GEM, along with GSX2 (the graphics part
of GEM) loads into Ram at the same time,
calling MS-DOS when necessary, for disc
accesses and the like. On the Atari, both
СРМ/68к and GEM lie in Rom, along with
low-level OS known as TOS (Tramiel
Operating System). This gives а lot more
user Ram than one would expect.
At the moment, GEM is almost finished
for the IBM PC and clones, though in
black-and-white
only. The Atari
version of СЕМ із
based on CPM/68K
version 2, which
understandably
colour, and Ram capacity, so that И need
be no concern to the programmer. As I
have found on the Mac, while the WIMP
environment is terrific for the user, it can
bea real nightmare for the programmer.
Most standard programs for other ma-
chines have to be completely re-written
to run under GEM or the Mac, because
program flow is so different, and it can
take time to adjust.
However, anyone that has got used to
it writing for the Mac can easily move
onto GEM, as the programming ideas
are so similar. As a lot of US software
houses have written business software
for the Mac, GEM should not suffer a
shortage for very long. Digital Re-
search's Programmers Development
tools I was shown look very similar to the
Apple ones, and even share names in
some cases, which will make it easier to
move on to GEM. Also the technical
manual looks easier to understand than
the 1500-odd page ‘Inside Macintosh’
manual.
1 have seen two programs runnning
under GEM - Desktop and GEMdraw.
Desktop is a close copy of the Finder on
the Mac, and is usually the first thing a
user sees when switching on the ma-
chine. It consists of a menu bar along the
top of the screen, the rest of the screen
being grey, forming the desktop itself.
Lying on the desk, аз it were, are icons
has a high priority
to complete. The
only colour ver-
sion of GEM in cur-
rently in existence
is on the Tandy
2000, but I have re-
grettably been un-
able to see it. It
should make an
appreciable dif-
ference, АШ уег-
sions of СЕМ, re-
gardless of the
machine they run
оп, take account of
any colour infor-
mation contained in programs, whether
they can actually display colour or not.
To the user, GEM offers great advan-
tages, making programs much easier to
use, and neater looking on the screen.
To the programmer, it also offers a huge
advantage — that of portability. Provided
programs are written in a high level
language, such as C or Pascal, and that a
suitable compiler is available, they can
be instantly ported across from one GEM
machine to another, even if they use
different processors This means that
programs written on one machine have а
much greater market as conversions are
so easy. GEM takes care of machine
differences, such as screen resolution,
showing ‘Floppy Disc’ or ‘Hard Disc'. Оп
‘clicking’ them with the mouse, they
open up into a window, containing more
icons for each of the files on the disc, of
folders denoting sub-directories. Click-
ing on folders makes them open up into
another window, and so on, so the
desktop can get quite cluttered with
windows full of icons for files. Applica-
tions can have their own icons, so for
example programmers’ tools are denot-
ed by a hammer in a box.
Data files can also have icons, so all
files produced by the GEMdraw pro-
gram have a miniature technical draw-
ing on them. Copying files from one disc
to another is accomplished by simply
4
POPULAR COMPUTING WEEKLY
ЕЖ а ақ Е, = 25 ен сола
‘dragging’ with the mouse an icon from
опе disc's window to another.
Deleting files is just as simple by
dragging the icon into the wastebasket
icon. The desktop thus allows all the
features normally accomplished by com-
mands entered at the A: prompt of other
OSs by simple use of the mouse, and no
need of keyboard at all unless you
rename something. Each window can
have íts size changed at will, by simply
dragging its bottom right corner around
until it's the desired size.
GEMdrawis а close copy of MacDraw,
a sophisticated graphics package. This
is not to be confused with MacPaint and
its imitations (such as the one supplied
with the AMX mouse), which just handle
Special feature
bitimages on the
screen. GEMdraw
treats all items
separately, so, for
example, if you
draw a solid circle
on top of a square,
and then chose to
move the circle
somewhere else,
the square under-
neath would re-
appear.
It can also han-
Ше text in various
styles and sizes,
though it show up
quite a difference between the Mac and
СЕМ - because the almost virtual-memo-
ry way the Mac handles fonts, it can hold
as many fonts and sizes as can fit on the
disc.
While GEM is ideal for applications
programs, it offers fewer advantages to
the games market. Few of the games
available for the Mac use any of the
WIMP features, except adventures
which use pull-down menus for quick
entry of commands. Using the mouse
itself for controlling your spaceship or
whatever is difficult in most games, but
there are а few which can benefit from its
fast movement. While Jet Set Willy with a
mouse would be impossible, a game like
Galaxians would be much easier using
‘one. When mice become more popular
оп cheaper machines, I've no doubt
inventive programmers will come up
with new concepts that would only be
possible with a mouse. Portability may
not be relevant to games under СЕМ —
they are usually written in machine-
code, and I doubt if the standard GSX
entry points would be sufficient for
mega-games.
The Atari micros are the first to license
the use of GEM for a home machine, but
others may well follow. Sinclair has said
that if it did become available in a suit-
able form they would offer it on the QL.
The Beeb has recently had the AMX
mouse released for it, and while it has no
chance of running GEM, it does show a
growing interest in WIMPs on home
machines. In addition, itis rumoured that
Sinclair will be producing a mouse for
the QL, but not for several months yet.
1 have been completely sold on the
WIMP environment ever since getting a
Mac, as it makes the most complex of
programs so much easier to use, both for
the novice and for the computer literate.
All new machines that are expected to
come out within the next year (that are
not IBM clones) have a 6800-based archi-
tecture, attempt to bridge the gap be-
tween home and business, and run some
form of WIMP environment. It would
seem that GEM offers the ideal operating
system.
TAPE TO DISC UTILITY
very useful лику to help shift
COMMODORE 64
POWERFUL UTIL
Fed up with waiting for pro-
‘grams to LOAD? Spot
7-13 MARCH 1885
ШЕННЕ
534528 2
Ей
ТШ
pide
nb
Ee
MICRO CENTRE MICRO CENTRE
BRIDGE STREET. EVESHAM
D500 €23.00
ime quarantee Box of Ten
3M SCOTCH DISCS
15
Light cycle
Multi-level action in this version of Lightcycle
Sinclair QL, there are three levels.
Firstly, you must survive on the
grid, avoiding the mines that appear,
then on to play a computer controlled
opponent. Finally, you face the opponent
and deadly mines.
Т: this version of Lightcycle for the
for the QL by Philip Sproston
Program Notes
The user-defined characters should be
compatible for all versions of the QL.
Once the characters have been defined,
if you wish to print on the screen using
the old characters you must call the
procedure ‘oldset’. Lines 1620 and 1630
can be altered if you want different keys
to control the lightcycle. Lines 1040 to
1290 contain the various procedure
calis, and can be altered to have differ-
ent or additional levels, using your own
procedures.
POPULAR COMPUTING WEEKLY
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continued on Page 18 >.
7-13 MARCH 1985
7
< continued from Page 17
ar Game
Competition
Journey beyond the stars...
his week Popular is
giving away (well, you
have to answer a few
questions first) 25 copies of
the Amstrad version of the
highly successful arcade
spectacular from Realtime
Software - 3D Starstrike.
An arcade shoot-em-up that
unashamedly requires you to
zap and zap again and weave
your space fighter through a
nightmarish collection of
fiendish obstacles that rush
towards you in glorious 3D
perspective. With detailed
hi-res graphics and awesome
sound effects, 3D Starstrike
оп the Amstrad promises to
be one of the successful ar-
cade thumb busters of the
year. Want one for nothing?
The Competition
There are 25 games to be
won. The winners will be the
first 25 readers whose names
are drawn from an old box or
similar makeshift receptacle
who have correctly answered
the following questions:
1) Who was the sec-
ond man to set foot on
the moon?
2) What was the name
of the teddy bear like
creatures in Return of
the Jedi?
3) What song did HAL
sing?
What to do
If you think you know the
answers to the questions jot
them down in the box below
and send the completed form
in an envelope to: Starstrike
Competition, Popular Com-
puting Weekly, 12-13 Little
Newport Street, London
WC2H TPP. Closing date for
the competition is March
22nd. The Editor's decision is
final.
18
GARGOVLE GAMES
£9.95 48K ZX SPECTRUM
Tir Na Nóg — the land of youth, the other world.
Tir Na Nog — the kingdom of the sidhe, the home of dagda's cauldron.
Tir Na Nog—a vast and complex adventure, in a magical celtic landscape.
Tir Na Nog—a most stunning visual experience, with state-of-the-art film
animation.
Tir Na Nog—a true computer movie.
CBM64
ALSO FROM GARGOYLE:
THE STUNNING SPACE GAME,
AD ASTRA - £5.95
WINNER - CRASH READERS’
BEST SHOOT-EM-UP AWARD
GARGOYLE GAMES, 74 KING STREET, DUDLEY, WEST MIDLANDS. TEL: DUDLEY 238777
Slave of serf
Program Castle of Jasoom
Price £12.95 Micro Commo-
dore 64/Disk Drive Supplier
Quicksilva Mail Order, РО
Box 6, Wimborne, Dorset
BAZ) TPY
n the affluent USA almost
every hacker owns a
disk-drive. Because Brit-
ish computer buffs favour the
cassette system, there aren't
too many dedicated disk
games around, The advan-
tages of using a disk-based
game are considerable. In
this case, a fairly ordinary
game is transformed into
Something eminently play-
able, The adventure area is
huge. Once a particular level
has been completed, the
computer simply loads up the
next section,
Тһе adventure begins in
the Castle of Jasoom. Itis your
job to find the fabled Jasoom
Diamond and во prove that
you are the rightful ruler. Ex-
perience points can be col-
lected on the way. While ex-
ploring the network of rooms
and passages in the castle,
you can expect a few sur-
prises, Sarcastic comments
like “It's a bit crowded round
here as you are surrounded
by killer spiders and poison-
ous snakes” are common.
Тһе joystick is used for con-
trol along with the function
keys, for taking, attacking, fir-
ing arrows and using a shield.
Castle of Jasoom is described
ав а real time action interac-
tive film. That may be stretch-
ing poetic licence a bit far,
but it certainly provides fast-
moving action. Strategy is
also important as many differ-
ent clues and problems need
tobe solved.
At the end of each game a
rating is given, starting with
slave, зегі, vassal, etc. Al-
though the graphics aren't
spectacular, I found Castle of
Jasoom a bit different and
very challenging. You ci
tainly won't get bored.
Tom Hussey
cece
Poetical
Program Penguin Study Soft-
ware — Julius Caesar Price
£7.95 Micro Spectrum 48K
Supplier Penguin Books Ltd,
Harmondsworth, Middlesex.
riends, students and
countrymen, lend me
your Spectrums. 1
come to praise Caesar, not to
bury it. The immortal bard
and the micro may seem an
unlikely combination, and a
study aid for CSE and O-level
students lacks the immediate
appeal of the latest high-scor-
ing arcade game, but Pen-
guin's contribution to literary
criticism із genuinely
revolutionary.
Not that it will write your
essay for you, but as criticism.
is at least 50 percent a pro-
cess of sorting the relevant
facts then asking pertinent
questions about them, it will
reduce much of the initial
hard work. A simple menu
system provides a choice of
17 key themes, from Alchemy
to Weeping, and eight people
or groups. You can also spec-
ify an act.
Choose your combination
of themes and/or people, in
any acts, and the micro
searches the database to dis-
play not just line references
but also indications of their
relevance and pertinent
questions. Cross references
are also suggested.
The system used seems
flawless and essays such as
"Discuss the imagery of sick-
ness in relation to Caesar іп
Act Г will suddenly become
manageable. The highest
praise that I can offer is that I
wish this program had been
around when I was studying
English.
John Minson
X
trette
Help for hacks
Program Datatext Price
£4.95 Micro Spectrum 48K
Supplier P. B. Software, 8
Beechwood Rd, Chippenham,
Wiltshire SN14 0EZ
irst the microdrive
then the Spectrum +
have gone some way to
making Sir Clive's little micro
a viable word processor.
Realising that competition
among such programs will be
steep, P. B. Software have
produced this one at a bar-
gain price.
Datatext's screen divides
into three windows; at the
bottom are various status
checks; all typed input passes
through the middle one;
above a larger display con-
tains automatically formatted
text. Many features expected
of word processors are here;
block delete and move, string
search and replacement, var-
ious printer widths and, of
course, correction with
editing via the middle win-
dow. A few features are miss-
ing though, such as right justi-
fication and a word counter.
The documentation, written
with the program and dot-
matrix printed, is sufficient,
though a quick reference
sheet would not go amiss.
Writing is a highly personal
activity, whether it's with a
pen or micro. I can't say that I
found Datatext easy to use,
but then again Гуе hardly had
time to become accustomed
to it. A hardened hack is un-
likely to be using a Spectrum
to write anyhow, and for the
impoverished ` occasional
scribe it may prove a good
budget choice.
ссе
John Minson
Cheeky with it
Program Castle Quest Price
£12.95 Micro BBC Supplier
Micro Power, Sheepscar
House, Sheepscar Street
South, Leeds 157 1AD
robably the most chal-
pz
devised for the BBC
micro, says the blurb on the
jacket of Micropower's Castle
Questin what is probably the
cheekiest piece of hype ad-
vertising for a piece of Beeb
software devised so far this
year. Castle Quest is fun, but
a serious rival to Elite it isn't.
This is an "arcventure"
game, of a type which is rela-
tively new in the BBC range of
games. Afler a loading
Screen accompanied by a
rendition of The Sorcerer's
Apprentice apparently
played by a chorus of tin
whistles, you find your сһаг-
acter standing in what looks
rather like a building site,
with scaffolding and ladders
the main features, You are, in
fact, on the outskirts of the
Wizard's castle and your ob-
ject is, inevitably, to find and
filch the old boy's treasure.
This is no easy task for as
you move along (the graphics
are colourful if a little simplis-
tic and the sideways scrolling
is remarkably smooth) you
will meet many hazards, in-
cluding spiders, trolls and a
witch, as well as discovering
20
POPULAR COMPUTING WEEKLY
various objects which will
help you at different stages.
Castle Quest is keyboard-
controlled which, since
events happen very fast, will
cause several deaths at first
until you get the hang of the
commands. You can pick up,
drop or "store" items (four at
any one time) and you can
also throw or thrust them at
menaces. This tends to work
best when using real weap-
ons such as the sword. I found
that trying to frizzle the spider
with ihe torch or brain the
troll with the aqualung didn't
get me very far.
Apart from manipulation of
objects, there are adventure
elements in other parts of the
game. Getting carted off to a
dungeon cell is a real risk
and, unless you can figure out
an adventure-type sequence
of actions (and have the right
objects with you), you may
stay there for the duration
This is an attractive game
which should do well on its
own merits, but Micropower
are doing it no favours by
inviting comparison with
Acornsoft's megagame.
Barbara Conway
Bargain
Program 10 Pack Price £10
Micro Spectrum 48K Suppli-
er Automat U.K. Ltd., 27 High-
land Road, Portsmouth, Hants.
PO49DA
п enduring feature of
ZX Microfairs is the
Automata mob flog-
ging programs... mot half
price, not quarter price but to
you, guv, a quid! Those
who've hitherto avoided the
throng in Ally Pally can now
buy ten of the Pi Man's
favourites at this giveaway
price.
At times it's easy to forget
that Automata are more than
just a weekly cartoon and a
crazy concept. Here, howev-
er, is their history from the
uninspiring dice game,
Yakzee, to the used-car sales-
man simulation, New Wheels
John?, which kept me up all
night trying to out-Arfur Da-
ley because of its humorous
approach to a genre normally
missing human elements.
Upsetting the norm is ће
key to Automata. Morris
Meets the Bikers (what - more
clapped-out autos?) and
Piromania enliven the plat-
form game by having an en-
dearing hero in the former
and а hair and fire-raising
scenario for the latter. Who
but Automata would make al-
coholic intake an integral part
of Darts or even write а pub-
crawling, РЕЕуәй Pi Man
variation of Frogger?
Olympimania proves to be
а disappointing jumping
game, but Pi-Balled is a good
Q-Bert and its hero turns up
again in Piin'Ere. Finally
Crusoe is an adventure unlike
any other which I found al-
most unplayable; others may
disagree.
‘That's the point of this com-
pilation; at the price you can
afford the bad because of the
good. True to form though, at
the recent Microfair Automa-
tawere discounting it further!
John Minson
єє
Pi
CORLETH THE FEY
He stor
Gond,
SIG
сз the Plains of
South Co
the
ANON
Don't miss it
Program The Lords of Mid-
night Price£9.98 Micro Com-
modore 64 Supplier Beyond,
Competition House, Farndon
Road, Market Harborough,
Leics.
ords of Midnight is ће
first adventure in the
Midnight trilogy - the
second, Doomdark's Re-
venge, is already available
for the Spectrum.
Пепа to find normal adven-
tures a bit frustrating — how
many times have you been
told, “I do not see a table
here", when there is one
clearly in the picture? Lords
of Midnightis totally different;
itis more like an experience.
Can you imagine controlling
the main characters in the
Lord of the Rings saga as they
wage war against evil?
Itis the day of the Solstice,
the beginning of winter, and
the forces of Midnight are
gathering for war and the
peoples of the Free must be
protected from Doomdark,
the Witchking of Midnight.
You star by being able to
contro four ^ different
charcters: Luxor (the
Moonprince), Morkin,
Corleth, and Rorthron as they
hold council in the Tower of
the Moon. The computer con-
trols the forces of Doomdark
and other independent
characters.
The screen display shows
the view in full perspective,
as if you were looking
through the eyes of the hero,
not as a map. You have the
ability to look in any of the
eight directions of the com-
pass, and apparently, 32,000
different panoramic locations.
can be visited. On your trav-
els, you will be able to recruit
men and gain allies in your
quest to destroy Doomdark.
What 1 liked about this
game is that a choice of possi-
ble actions is given for each
location, and you can choose
one with a single key-press.
Space is much too short to
describe even half of the fea-
ture of the Lords of Midnight,
but just imagine yourself in
command of thousands of
warriors and riders as they
charge into battle,
1 nearly gave this epic ad-
venture six stars — it should
certainly not be missed.
Tom Наввеу
KKK
Challenging
Program Roland Goes
Square Bashing Price £1.95
Micro | CPC464Supplier
Amsoft (via Durrell) Brent-
wood House, 169 Kings Road,
Brentwood, Essex СМ14 4ЕЕ.
oland, looking like a
Tate and Lyle sugar
man in his latest incar-
nation, has to bounce diago-
nally around on a three di-
mensional layout of squares
butafter cursing the game for
at least ten minutes I slowly
cottoned on that it wasn't an-
other version of Q-Bert.
Each square that Roland
stands on slowly but inexora-
bly disappears forcing him to
jump to the next or fall to his
doom. However the layout of
the squares on the twenty
screens is frequently ex-
tremely complex, with many
of them overlapping each
other, obscuring those be-
hind and forcing you to think
very quickly indeed. In all it's
a well executed game that I
found 10 be both enjoyably
different and intellectually
challenging.
Tony Kendle
ссе
7-13 MARCH 1985
Defy dragons
Program Colossal Cave Ad-
venture Price £7.95 Micro
Commodore 64 Supplier
Duckworth, The Old Piano
Factory, 43 Gloucester Cres-
cent, London NWI ТҮ.
eter Gerrard is taking
us back into very tradi-
tional questing territo-
ту with this package from
Duckworth, an adaptation of
the original Crowther and
Woods mainframe adventure
оп which many of my genera-
tion of computer enthusiasts
grew up. But don't be put off
by the ancient pedigree. Al-
though seasoned adventurers
may find that they can guess
the obstacles to come by the
objects they find, it is still an
absorbing world of its own to
anyone who has not yet expe-
rienced it.
This is a text-only treasure
hunt through a strange and
magical land, where all the
now-familiar monsters and
puzzles throng іп a wide-
spread layout with plenty of
good descriptions and the fa-
cility to call up clues if you're
willing to sacrifice some
points, Defy the dragon (of
course you knew that there
had to be a dragon some-
where when you came across
the bird, didn't you?), trounce
the troll and, if you can keep
the thieving pirate at bay, pile
up riches in the wellhouse.
The screen layout is fairly
clear, with yellow text on a
black background and some
text highlighted, and re-
sponses to the verb/noun
command input are fast with а
wide vocabulary to draw on.
Not so much of a visual treat
аз many new graphical
games, but still good, enjoy-
able brain exercise,
Barbara Conway
ссе
Adults only
Program Star Watcher Mi-
cro CPC 464 Price £24.95
Supplier Amsoft, Brentwood
House, 169 Kings Road, Brent-
wood, Essex CM14 4EE
L the field of genuinely
useful things that can be
done with a home micro
there can be little doubt that
the most underdeveloped
area is that of decent ‘adult’
educational software. With
the possible exceptions of
опе or two language рго-
grams or some releases by
Sinclair the only people who
seem to be working in this
area are Triptych software
who have released their
Brianpower series under the
Amsoft label
Oftheir range Star Watcher
is one of the more specialist
packages and most people
will have very strong ideas
about whether or not the sub-
ject appeals to them but it
bears all their usual hall-
marks of very well designed
and thought out programs
backed up by а manual
packed full of useful informa-
tion, The package is divided
into two halves — the first con-
centrates on teaching you the
fundamentals of astronomy
and the way our view of the
stars is determined by our
position on the earth's
surface.
However none of the above
necessarily needs to be tack-
led before you go on to the
second tape which is essen-
tially an applications package
which contains a database of
the brightest stars visible
from earth, Using this you can
call up a graphical represen-
tation of the sky at any time or
any point on the earth's sur-
face. Following from this the
program can be made to step
through the way the stars’
positions change as you
change either your position
or the time of viewing.
There are more features
than I can possibly document
here and for interested 464
owners I feel that this pack-
age will be indispensible. 1
know it's pricey but that's in-
evitable when producing
quality for a small market.
Tony Kendle
есесе
Powerful
Program Assembler/Moni-
tor 64 Price £19.99 Micro
Commodore 64/Disk Drive
Supplier First Publishing Ltd,
Unit 20B, Horseshoe Road,
Horseshoe Park, Pang-
bourne, Berks.
nyone with ambitions
towards writing ar-
cade games will need
to master machine code - at
least for programming the ac-
tion sequences. Unfortunate-
ly, the masses of numbers that
occur in machine code list-
ings put off many beginners.
This is a pity, because a good
Assembler can take much of
the sweat out of machine code
programming. By allowing us
to write our programs in the
more easily understood to-
kens (which the Assembler
then converts into machine
code) the whole process can
be speeded up no end.
Assembler| Monitor 64 al-
lows programs to be entered
using line numbers, just like
Basic. Lines can be changed,
deleted or inserted exactly ав
in Basic. The Assembler uses
two passes and therefore al-
lows the use of labels for
loops.
A powerful feature of this
package is the use of “ex-
pressions”. By using a recur-
sive routine for calculating
nested expressions, Аввет-
bler[Monitor 64 steals a
march on many of its rivals.
Arithmetic and logical opera-
tions can be used in expres-
sions, and all operations are
performed using 16 bit
arithmetic.
А comprehensive set of
pseudo op-codes are sup-
ported - you can even return
to Basic if you wish. (Some
care is needed when using
this option). Error messages
are displayed on both pass 1
and pass 2. Syntax errors are
accompanied by a number
which identifies the type of
error.
Monitor 64 can be loaded
concurrently with Assembler
64. Among other things, it
allows machine language
programs to be saved, load-
ed, executed or
disassembled.
The best advice that can be
offered to anyone interested
in machine code program-
ming is to go out and buy the
best assembler he can afford.
In the long run, you get what
you pay for, and Assembler)
Monitor 64 certainly provides
value for money.
Tom Hussey
KKK
Wrong track
Program Trains Price £7.95
Micro: BBC В Supplier:
Acorn User, Redwood Pub-
lishing, 68 Long Acre, Lon-
don WC2E 9JH
hank goodness British
Rail do better than this!
Peter Balch's game is
promoted by a commercial
BBC User Group Magazine
and one might suppose it was
state-of-the-art. Sorry, no.
This rail network is strictly
steam trains — unlikely Thom-
as the Tank Engine shapes -
chugging slowly round a
bird's nest of tracks. The aim
is to take passengers from
each of four stations to the one
they want. The intended
problems are that you have to
control up to four trains,
change points, stop at sta-
tions, reverse, etc.
The real snag, however, is
the track... it's built by a
barmy algorithm which is
supposed to give you the joys
of a random layout with each
new game.
In fact it takes ages to draw
each screen and often doesn't
even join up the stations.
(There's an on-screen apolo-
gy that there wasn't room to
ensure that! Tell that to
‘Elite'!) As an additional trap
the control keys don't always
respond - but by the time you
discover that you won't care.
Jan Watterson
у.
с
22
POPULAR COMPUTING WEEKLY
Se на аны. ны ———— `
Actual Screen shots Quicksilva Mail Orde, FF —
P.O. Box 6, Wimbome, Dorset BA24 7PY. Telephone (0202) 89
АТЕА$Т ТНЕ —À—
ARCADE ADVENTURE FROM ЇЇ) MEGA
Available through
‘good computer
Into fast gear
Speed up your Basic programs on any machine with a few
tips from Paul Tolman
алу of you will have wondered
if it’s possible to speed up your
Basic programs without having
to buy a compiler. Obviously interpret-
ed Basic programs will never run as fast
as machine code programs, but by fol-
lowing a few simple rules considerable
improvements in performance can be
obtained.
For the uninitiated the ‘interpreter’ is
the program built into your micro which
translates a Basic program into machine
code as the program is run. This process
is very time consuming — which is why
Basic is slow.
Firstly consider how the interpreter
deals with line numbers. In Basic, lines
can be of variable length and don't have
to be numbered sequentially, This is a
big problem for the interpreter, for
when it sees a statement like ‘Goto 100"it
doesn't know where the Basic instruc-
tions for Line 100 are in memory. Thus
the interpreter has to search through the
program line by line, starting at the first
line, until it finds the line in question
‘This is a very time consuming process,
particularly as many Basics don’t then
remember where the line is for future
use (eg, іп the loop for t=1 (о
20:goto1000:next t' lime 1000 has to
searched for 20 times!.)
Two major ways of improving perfor-
mance arise from this. First, try and put
the most frequently used subroutines at
the beginning of the program as they
will be found quickly when called. This
is very important with large programs.
Some of the more advanced interpreters
(eg, IBM PC) remember a line's location
after the first search and so the above
doesn’t apply), Secondly, Gosub..Return
із likely to be faster than the equivalent
Goto..Goto, eg:
SLOW
10 goto 100
20 (next line)
ER
100 print "Hello":goto 20
FASTER
10 gosub 100
20 (nextline)
30..
100 print "Hello":return
In many programs it is necessary to
have loops that are iterated (executed)
many times. It is important to realise that
the statements in a loop (the ‘body’ of a
loop) have to be interpreted separately
on every iteration. Thus it is very impor-
tant to make sure that the code in any
loop is as fast as possible — saving 1/10 of
a second on every iteration adds up to a
lot of time if the loop is executed several
hundred times, so don't put Rems or
Data statements inside a loop if you can
avoid it.
Talking of loops Рог... Next loops
are faster than the equivalent using
1f. . Then . . Goto loops, eg:
FAST
10 fort- 11020
20 (body of loop)
30 nextt
SLOW
10 1=1
20 (body of loop)
30 t=t+ Lif t< = 20 then goto 10
This is largely because the 'goro 10
doesn't have to be directly executed in
the Рог. ‚ Next method.
Some Basics don't require the loop
variable 10 be on the end of the next
statement, eg, or t=1 to 20:next’ is
legal. This is faster than the equivalent
‘next г. The presence of the loop vari-
able (tin the above example) forces the
interpreter to check that the 7" is the
correct variable (to make sure that you
haven't crossed loops, etc). If the t is
absent the interpreter assumes your
program is correct.
Some important points arise from con-
sidering arithmetic. Multiplication is fast-
er than division and addition is faster
than multiplication, so x * 0.5 is faster
than x/2. Likewise a statement like x * x
is faster than x*(‘x to the power of two’)
Don't recalculate already known val-
wes particularly with functions like SIN,
COS, EXP. Save the value in a variable
for later use. See the example below.
Also, integer arithmetic is very much
faster than real arithmetic. Always use
integer variables (eg, x,t) wherever pos-
sible, although some Basics like CBM 64
convert all integers to reals anyway and
so the above doesn't apply.
Оп a different tack, when using multi-
ple IF statements, put the most likely
conditions to occur first in the program:
eg:
l00ifa$ = “n” then goto 1000
M, for example, (a!
likely to happen (а$= "n") then swap
round the statements on Lines 100 and
1
20.
It's also worth noting that arrays аге
slower than non array variables. Very
occasionally it is possible to eliminate an
array without making the program зо
complicated that itis even slower. This is
true when you always index a particular
array using constants and not variables.
бе, your references to the array are of
the form a(1), a(12), etc rather than a(t),
a(y+ 1), etc.
Finally, putting multiple statements on
a line is faster than using separate lines,
eg:
10 for t = Oto 100:(body of loop): next tis
faster than -
10 for t = 010 100
20 (body of loop)
30 nextt
Using these techniques can make a big
difference in the performance of the
average program. But don't go for
speedy programs for their own sakel
Implementing many of the above points
will cause a program to become less
readable and will make it harder to
debug or modify, во don't make a pro-
gram (or a subroutine) fast if speed
doesn't matter as is very often the case.
FAST
20 area titi pi
40 next t
SLOW
49 next t
10 pi=4tatn(1)sfor {20 to 1 step 0.1
30 print “area of circle radius " t "is " area
10 for t=0 to 1 step 0.1
20 area=t E t 1 4 v гін)
30 print "area of circle radius * t "is * area
7-13 MARCH 1985
Commodore 64
Stitched together
Isolate sections of your programs with this routine
for the CBM 64 by Mike Hart
you ever been faced with the
lowing problem: having de-
veloped a portion of code or a
subroutine, you now wish to ‘tidy it up’
by renumbering it, but your renumber
facility also renumbers the rest of the
program? Or you may simply wish to
save a section of a program or a sub-
routine to be appended to later pro-
grams? What is needed is some way to
isolate the section of code you have
developed from the rest of the program
so that you can subject it to special
treatment.
The solution lies in this small machine-
code routine written for the CBM 64
called Code-Isolator. When you call the
routine specifying the first and last line
of the section of code that you wish to
isolate, it alters the start and end of Basic
pointers so that your machine only ‘sees’
that portion of code. You can now re-
number it or save as you wish. Finally,
calling another Sys routine will ‘stitch’
the program back together again for you
and you now have the finished article.
The code is located in the cassette
buffer but is completely relocatable. As
it stands, the code occupies locations
:3033С 30388 (828-907 decimal). To iso-
late the code, we call the entry point
(three bytes further on from the start
location) using the syntax Sys
831, first, second, where first refers to the
start point of the code you wish to isolate,
and second refers to the last line.
Ifthe lines do not exist, you will get an
Undefined Statement error. Having per-
formed your renumber or what have
you, then calling Sys 887 will stitch the
program back together for you.
Relocating the code із simple, if you
find that it conflicts with another
favourite routine that also occupies the
cassette buffer. The entry point for the
isolation routine is three bytes further on
from your new location start address,
whilst the stitch routine is called by
accessing 59 bytes further on from your
new location start address.
The routine is generally quite robust,
ie, it will cope with the fact that later
sections of code are moved down in
memory if any Goto's in a central 'isolat-
ed’ section of code are renumbered in
such a fashion that this section of code
itself becomes longer, eg, Goto 9 might
become Goto 60009 which obviously
occupies more space in the way that the
program line is stored. However, you
should take care in the following case.
Any references (eg Good in your
isolated section of code that jumped
beyond the code will not be valid. Your
Renumber routine may renumber them
as it now cannot ‘see’ the rest of your
program. Be prepared to renumber
these by hand.
А detailed disassembly is provided
for those who like to see how such
routines work and extend their own
knowledge of machine code proce-
dures. The references to the Rom
routines are: sABE3 (Undefined State-
ment Error), sA96B (input number 0-
63998, 5A613 (search text for line по),
A533 (rechain lines).
ES
13:
ДМ IF Т<28518 THEN PRINT"ERROR!":END
15:
1 REM ЖЖЖЖ CODE-ISOLRTIER — ЖНЖ 186 DATA 177,95,240,2,230,2,169,0
2: 197 DATA 145,95,96,169.8,160,1,133
3 REM жж М.С. HART ж 108 DATA 44,132,43,32,51,165, 166.1
4 14S DATA 165.2,145.34,32,51,165,96
5 РЕМ SYNTAX SYS 831,-- -- 10 ISOLATE 118
6 RI REM ‘SYS 887 ТП RE-LINK SAG PRINT “SEGMENT 1": PRINT
Lë 518 REM
в REM ALT. :LOC^N*3, TO ISOLATE 528 FOR 7-1 ТП 5
9 КЕМ LOC’N+59 TO RELINK 538 PRINT J
19 : 540 НЕХТ
11 L-828:FÜR J-L ТО L*79:REHD X:PUKE 7,Х 550 PRINT
12 Т=Т+Х:МЕХТ J 560
1010 REM
180 DATA 76,227, 168,32, 115.0, 32, 107 1636 PRINT J
101 DATA 169,32,19,166,144,242,165,95 1948 NEXT
102 DATA 166,96, 133,43,134,44,169,9 1058
103 DATA 133,2,32,115,ӣ,32,107,169
104 DATA 32,19, 166,144,219, 168,3,.200 READY.
185 DATA 177,395,208,251, 290, 145,95, 200
teen “PRINT "SEGMENT 2": PRINT
1020 FOR 1-1 TO 5
POPULAR COMPUTING WEEKLY
ORPHEUS PASCAL 64
This is a cassette based implementation for the Commodore 64.
The package consists of an editor, compiler and run time interpreter
Which are loaded into memory from cassette and stay resident in
the machine as long as the Pascal is being used
The language is based on standard Pascal with a number of
useful extensions for graphics, sound and joystick control.
Editor Commands
Standard Commodore screen editor +
AUTO BASIC CAPSON CAPSOFF CHANGE CLOAD CSAVE COLDST
COMP(ILE) DELETE DECVAL FIND HEXVAL LIST NEW RENUMB
RUN SPOOL CONFIG TEXT
Standard Constants
FALSE TRUE MAXINT
Standard Types
INTEGER BOOLEAN REAL
Standard Files
INPUT OUTPUT
Standard Functions
ABS ARCTAN
ODD ORD
TRUNC
Standard Keywords
AND ARRAY BEGIN CONST DIV DOWNTO
ELSE END FILE FUNCTION GOTO IN
LABEL MOD NIL NOT OF OR
PROCEDURE PROGRAM RECORD SET THEN TYPE
UNTIL VAR WHILE
Standard Procedures
GET NEW PACK PAGE READLN
REWRITE UNPACK WRITE WRITELN
Other Keywords and Extensions
BORDER CLRCRAYON CLRPAD CRAYON DISPOSE DRAW
ENVELOPE ERASE FIRE НІНЕ5 HOURS INKEY JOYSTICK LORES
MINUTES ONERR ORIGIN PAD PAINT PAPER PEEK PEN
PLOT POINT POKE RANDOM SECONDS SETCLOCK SPLIT
UNPAINT VOICE VOLUME CLOSE NEW
Orpheus Pascal is supplied on cassette with a comprehensive 128 page ring-bound manual.
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FAMINE FUND
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Everyone can help by buying
News from the world of
Sinclair QL computing.
Communications are now
the most exciting, essential part of any computer.
In the past six months alone, over 150,000
modems have been sold in the UK.
Now, the QL's own communications explosion is
taking shape... and it has the potential to make
more of communications than any other micro!
Read on and discover exciting new ways to use
your QL... with the QL modem... telephony
unit... and powerful interface options.
e
The QL is now communicating — via Q COM! This exciting
three-part peripheral presents QL users with a multitude of
ways to exploit the world of communications.
Once connected to the QL Through it you can link your
QCOMallowsyoutoaccessthe | QL to larger minicomputers
considerablenumberofphone- | QCOMbhasfull capability inthis
in databases, such as Prestel area,andallowsthe QLtotalkto
and QNet powerful mainframes.
QCOM enables youtocom- О COMS automatic dialling
municate with other computer
users. Its facilities include elec-
tronic mail, data transfer from
Microdrivesand bulletin boards.
Three s
(е
= QL communications
sex; interface
This multi-speed interface con- | receive at rates switchable from
tains the sophisticated software | 75 to 9600 baud (encompass
used to set up QL communi- | ing the widely-used 75/1200
ations - and to control the | Prestel rates, and 1200/1200
Q САЦ and О MOD units. half duplex rates for user-to-
Q СОМ ako comes com- | user exchange).
plete with Microdrive-based Q CON is specially styled to
software. This enablesthe OL to L- with similar fluting
link to larger computers using and forms the base
УТ100 and viewdata protocols | module of a vertical-stacking
The software will also system.
тип any standard modem - Its supplied with full instruct-
connected via О CONS built-in | ions, software on Microdrive
RS-232-C port cartridge, and connecting leads.
Most importantly, @ CON
allows the QL to transmit and |
and call acceptance facilities,
together with the storage of
messages from other modems,
will revolutionise the way you
use your telephone.
The next few pages of OU
News tell you much more.
Ws enough for meto say here
that with the QL and Q COM,
pecial parts to stack!
QAL
س
Q CALL gives every QL user
something out of the ordinary.
Its а module which links
directly to your telephone, and
allows auto-dialling at the push
ofasingle key. Inthe sameway, it
will permit incoming calls to be
DAVID KARLIN
Why О COMis
everything you could wish
for in communications.
you'll be exploring new open:
ings in communications for
some time to соте! )
— david Karlin,
Chief Design Engineer.
QL auto dial/answer unit
accepted automatically . . . and
even trigger pre-programmed
activity from the QL!
О CALL is the central unit of
the package.tt plugs directly into
Q CON - so there are no con-
necting cables to worry about
= QL modem
сш
О MOD has all the powerful
facilities expected of a modem,
in a neat and simple unit.
Ituseseither V2375/12000r
1200/1200 baud rates, for Pres-
tel, Micronet 800 and all the
viewdata described
alongside
It also incorporates а tele-
phone extension socket for
manual dialling.
Q MOD is the top unit of
services.
о -- —-
Exploring the world
of QNet, Prestel,
Micronet and more!
Thousands of QL users already
enjoy the excitement of linking
to a nationwide mainframe.
О СОМ tums your QL into
an intelligent terminal, allowing
you to access many thousands
of pages of information, soft
ware and communications facil
ities
The services brought to you
through Prestel can include
Micronet 800, Viewfax 258 and
QNet, the new QL database.
Aembership of QNet will
bring you free software, QL
news and features, and all the
wide-ranging services of viev
data!
If armchair shopping is more
your style, thats easy too. Its
often possible to place a direct
order using your QL! For dedi-
cated QL owners, theres a daily
selection of software reviews,
chart toppers....and all the facts
and figures you need to make
buying peripherals simple
With О СОМ you can also
‘download’ software from the
system directlyintoyourQLand
either use it immediately, ог
store it on Microdrive cartridge.
In fad the only problem
you'll face with a viewdata
service is finding enough time to
explore its many features!
You can find out how to join
QNet by phoning 01-278 3143.
Q COM, and comes with а 9
built-in telephone cable
All three units are available
from Sinclair on (0276) 685311
and from selected Sinclair
stockists.
The QL hooked
О COM allows you to store
hundreds of personal or busi-
ness numbers.
You can store lengthy pass-
words and account numbers —
and recall them -atthetouch of
gle key.
And any information that’s
a
Jews. information... bank e
wdala capability.
senttoyou from other modem
owners can be gathered and
stored on Microdrive cartridge,
or incorporated into your QL
Quill documents!
on voice and data
Тһе QL can now act as your
personal address book and
telephone operator!
m m"
QLmeets the
mainframes!
The Q CON unit of О COM
turns your QL into a VT100 ter.
minal, providing instant access
to in-house computing services,
both mainframe and mini
Whether you are using your
QLathomeoratwork QCOM
gives you access to electronic
bulletin boards which provide
help and advice 24 hours a day.
You can leave messages or
notices for friends or business
ntacts and even hold live
discussions with them.
Additional benefits for the
QL business user indude easy
access of in-house company
software, and the interrogation
of other data bases around the
country.
There’ also the opportunity
oflinkingto British Telecom Gold
= the widely-publicised and
| popular messaging service.
J sinclair
Sinclair Microdrive cartridges - up to 100K of pro
IEEE-488...
the instrument
connection!
IEEE-488 is the interface
standard set by the Institute
of Electronic and Electrical
Engineers for instrumentation
control,
QL Hardware
Microdrive cartridge
price cut to onl
mand data
IEEE-488 - or General Pur-
pose Instrumentation Bus - is а
parallel interface specifically
designed for high speed data
transfer between a number of
Jips discreetly into place
па medium so compact you can р
into your pocket
different types of device.
Itis commonly used for con-
trolling instrumentation via a
computer, allowing the creation
of laboratory data acquisition
systems, industrial control
schemes, etc.
The QL now has a fully.
fledged IEEE-4BBinterface from
CST It plugs neatly into the QLs
RAM expansion port, and can
control up to 16 instruments
simultaneously.
Its available from CST on
(0223) 323302.
у £1991
On February 1, the cost of
Microdrive cartridges сате
down from £4.95 to £1.99 each.
Microdrive cartridgesarethe
QLS own unique storage med-
ium. Each stores up to 100K of
information (that's 40 pages of
AA text), onacartridge no bigger
than a book of matches!
Over 500,000 cartridges аге
now being used throughout
Britain.
You can store up to 50 differ-
entdatafiles per cartridge, ident
ified by titles of your own
choice,
And QL Microdrives them:
selves are standard equipment
on the new ICL One Per Desk
micro, and British Telecoms new
Merlin Tonto,
New inter
ЗУ or 5%
With new Q-Disk you can
transform the QL into а power-
ful small business system
comprising QL, monitor, disk
interface, twin disk drives and
printer.
Q-Disk upgrades the QL to
disk storage. Fitting easily into
the QLS left hand RAM expan:
sion port, without the need fora
special expansion box, it con
tainsa Western Digital diskcon- |
troller chip. Software is held in
an on-board EPROM (so little
ofthe QLs RAM is used),
Plug in Q-Disk and the QL
accepts one or two disk drives,
sized 3 іп, 3 in, 51⁄4 in, either
40 or 80 track, single or double-
sided. Even when two drives are
used, they can bedifferenttypes!
Q-Dik offers up to 16
Mbytes ofquick reliablestorage
with a compatible disk drive,
Its made by Computamate,
who also offer a full range of
MEE NNN
QL to link students
Strathclyde University, іп
Glasgow, plans to have a cam
pus network of 7000 QLs linked
to a central VAX minicomputer.
Thats one QL for every
student . a major investment
project in a universiby which is
nowaleadingcentreforartificial
intelligence work.
Sindair is giving support
worth £250,000 to the project.
And its likely that QL users
face to connect 3;
disk drives
complimentary QL disk drives
To contact Computamate,
phone (0782) 811711.
mm
Single disk unit fitted with 5/4 inc
everywhere will benefit — the
students plan to develop Al
programs to run on the OU
The QL has impressed Prof.
James Айу of the University’s
Computer Science Depart
ment, who says оту the QL
could offer the computing
power, range of applications,
and above all the portability, at
a realistic price.
6
drives and (inset) the Q- Disk controller
The OU
high-tech spec
Dimensions
138x 46x 472mm
(6% x14 x18")
Weight
1388 gms (3.055 Ibs)
RAM
Massive 128К standard ВАМ,
externally expandable to 640K
Extra RAM is available іп 64K,
128K, 256K and 512K units,
from third-party suppliers.
ROM
48K, containing Sinclair Super
BASIC and the Sinclair Qdos
operating system.
CPU
Motorola 68008 (runningat 7.5
MHz) for all principal functions.
(Architecturally, the 68008 is a
32-bit processor with an eight-
bit data bus. One megabyte of
non-segmented address space
is available)
In addition, an Intel 8049
controls the keyboard, gener.
ates the sound, and acts as an
RS-232-C receiver.
Operating system
Qdos (developed by Sindair
Research) isa single-user multi
tasking time-sliced system using
Sinclair SuperBASIC as a com-
mand language with display
handling for multiple screen
windows; and device-indepen-
dent input-output.
е
Sindair SuperBASIC, with the
advantages of procedure struct-
uring; extendability (nduding
syntax); interpretation speed
independent of program size;
dean machine code interface
operatingsystem faciltiesacces-
sible from SuperBASIC; equal
capability for strings and arrays
and full error-handling facilities
Microdrives
The QL incorporates twin QL
Microdrives, each with a mini
mum 00K capacily,3 5seconds
average access time. Typical
loading rate of machine code
programs is 2-3K per second.
Video
High resolution graphics capa.
bility with colour or топо-
chrome monitor (ог TV) in two
modes — 512 x 256 pixels (four
coloursavailable) and256x256
pixels (eight colours available)
Normal character display for
mat of upto 85x25 with choice
of character sets available (TV
formatofupto40to60columns
depending on the software)
Keyboard
Full-size, 65-key QWERTY
keyboard featuring a space bar,
left- and right-hand shift keys,
five function keys and four
cursor control keys. The key-
board can be angled by means
of detachable feet
Expansion
Excluding RGB monitor, power
socket and TV port, eight peri
pheral/expansion ports аге
provided — one internal expan
sion, one Microdrive expansion,
one ROM cartridge, two serial
and two control channels, and
the local area network
Serial
Two standard RS-232-C com-
munications interfaces (ог
printers, modems, etc. Trans.
mission at rates from 75- 19200
baud or full duplex transmit/
receiveatsevenratesupto9600.
baud.
LAN
Forupto64 QL computers Data
transmissionoverthenetcanbe
achieved at 100K baud.
Power supply
9VDCat18A,156V ACat0.2A.
Joysticks.
Provision for one or two devices
for games or cursor control.
| Applications Software
QL Quill - word processor
| QL Abacus — spreadsheet
QL Easel - graphics
QL Archive - database
All four packages supplied with
theQL
Price
£399 induding МАТ QL
programs, full А4 manual,
power supply, 4 blank
cartridges and free Helpline
service.
[— == — ||
QL Software |
Updated versions of Psion |
software now available! `
QL Abacus, Archive, Easeland Quill arethe four Psion programs
supplied with every QL. Theyre now converted to 100%
machine code, and as a result they load from Microdrive cart-
ridge much faster
‘The overlays present in Version One software have been re-
moved, resulting in noticably quicker on-screen performance.
With the compactness of machine code, there’ a big saving
in QL memory too — all four programs now cope with larger,
more professional applications!
Version Two software is now supplied with every new QL.
Existing QLUB members — see back page.
QL: Quill
QL Quill makesiteasy to type in,
correct and store your letters,
memos and reports.
No training is needed - а
beginner can be using QL Quill
for word-processing within
minute
QL Quill has the facilities of
professional word processing |
packages: including word wrap,
search and replace, justification,
page headers and footers
QL Abacus
QL Abacus is a powerful, yet
easy-to-use spreadsheet
The program allows you to
manipulate the contents of
whole rowsand columns by the
names you assign them. Theres
noneedtodependonconfusing
letters and numbers.
QL Abacusalsoincorporates
а range of functions which let
you carry out rapid ‘what if
analyses on your data.
QL Easel
QL Easel allows you to create
арі, bar charts and pie charts
the touch of a key.
The program handles any.
thing from lines and shaded
curvestooverlappingorstacked
bars.
QL Easel designs and scales
automatically or under your
control. Text can be added and
altered as simply as dala.
QL Archive
QL Archive is a sophisticated,
powerful database program.
It indudes a screen editor
which allows youto design your
‘own screen and format your
reports, and a procedure editor
which lets you tailor QL Archive
to your own requirements.
QL Archive is ideal for all
database uses, yet its powerful
enough to be used by many
software houses to generate
specific database applications.
Non-members of QLUB can purchase new versions of the
above software for £15 per title,
Phone (0276) 686100 for details.
ог £50 for all four programs.
| 2
Coming soon-
QL: Entrepreneur,
QL Project Planner,
QL Decision Maker!
Three new QL business programs — with a differencel
QL Entrepreneur, QL Project Planner and QL Decision
Makertrain you to apply new and excitingmanagement skills —
through original and powerful means!
An interactive teaching program gives you a thorough and
enjoyable understanding of each subject — backed by a text-
bookand self-test facilities-andan applications program helps
you to use your new expertise for specific problems and
projects.
All three titles will increase your understanding and extend
your control — making involved subjects easy, stimulating and
usefull
токка Planner and СА De
QL Entrepreneur is an essential
program for anyone preparing
to start a new business — what
ever it may bel
It uses a ‘question and
answer format to help you build
a workable business plan.
With the input you give, it
works out the break-even point
of the business; the first 18
months’ cash flow, the type of
finance needed; the year end
Balance Sheet and Profit and
Loss accounts... and тоге!
QL Entrepreneur builds your
skills and techniques.
Its flexible too, so thatyou
can ask complex what if
questions at any stagel
The program comes with a
third, blank Microdrive cart-
sinclair
QL: Project Planner
= E
— Ж”
=й
а танта адаа
ridge and a comprehensive А5
manual.
QL: Project Planner
QL Project Planner will produce
plans you сап understand,
monitor and more easily
achieve.
First, you break the project
down into its individual activ-
ities, telling QL Project Planner
how long each takes and which
are inter-dependent
When you decide on a start-
ing time/date QL Project Plan-
ner will tell you when each
activity must start and finish and
when the project will be com-
pleted.
Each activity is divided into
its critically important stages —
those which can safely be
moved around without altering
=
QL- Decision Maker
the time taken by the project
and those where movement
will affect the completion dead-
line.
Whether or not you've used
projectplanningsystemsbefore,
you'll be amazed at the differ-
ence QL Project Planner can
make.
The program comes with a
third, blank Microdrive cart-
ridge and a comprehensive А5
manual.
QL-Decision Maker
Whether you're thinking of
buying a house, or taking on а
new business contract, QL Deci-
Sion Maker makes the choices
dearer!
It lets you look at the possib-
ilities — and their implications —
through a decision tree.
Onceyou'veset outthedect-
sionsand their probable costs or
results, QL Decision Maker
shows the outcomes which
would occur from each partic-
ular route.
You can see how much
money a decision could make
for you... or cost you. Complex
what if questionsare dealt with
swiftly and graphically
YoucandependontheQLto
highlight the best possible
route!
QL Decision Maker comes
with а third, blank Microdrive
cartridge and a comprehensive
А5 manual.
All three programs are avail
able from Sindair stockists
price £39.95 each, or Sindair
Research. Tel: (0276) 686100.
[— gium — | |
Now, buy a QL and
you're a member of
the QLUB-free!
QLUB is the special Users Bureau for
Sinclair QL owners.
Already, there are well over 10,000
QLUB members . . , enjoying a whole
range of information and advisory ser-
vices.
Until now, joining QLUB cost £35 per
year. From March 4, every new QL
What QLUB membership offers you
Regular newsletters — "e
delivered to your door
Each issue is packed with
updates on QL hardware and
Опе of the most important
QLUB benefits is the special
| owner can become a member - free of
charge!
With your new QL, you'll find a post-
paid form.Completeand mail it and you'll
soon be a member of the fastest growing
computer club in the country.
And you'll enjoy all the helpful services
listed here!
software, tips on applying the
four QL programs, and news of
how other people are using the
QL
times a year The magazine pro
vides a forum for QL owners to
exchange views and keep in
AV та
Pw" Vë
news magazine, appearing six
Special
discounts
QLUB members also receive a
range of special discounts, with
savings ofat least 20% on selec-
ted software products.
There are also special sub-
scription rates for Personal
Computer News and QL User,
Free Helpline
service from
Psion
All QLUB members are entitled
to 12 months special assistance
from Psion.
They'reat the endofthetele-
phone to answer any questions
on using the QL Abacus,
Archive, Easel and Quill pro-
grams supplied with the com:
Help is also available on any
aspect of using Sinclair Super-
BASIC, Qdos, or linking your QL
with major peripherals.
Psion will normally answer
any queries within 48 hours,
QL program updates are no
longer available free to QLUB
members. They will be sold
separately.
Good news for
members too!
As one of the first members of
QLUB, you should already have
received one free update of
each of the four QL programs —
and a letter with your new
membership details,
Ifforany reason you haven't,
you should ring (0276) 686100,
Then joining QLUB is easy and
free! Ring (0276) 685311 for full
details, You can be a full QLUB
member within а few days
Where to find the OL
The Sinclair QL is available at selected branches of Dixons, WH Smith, John Lewis Partnership,
Currys, Greens in Debenhams and Ultimate, and larger branches of Boots, John Menzies and Sinclair Research Ltd
specialist computer stores nationwide.
leie QL, QLUB, Qdos, and SuperBASIC, are Trade Marks of Sinclair Res
Abacus are Trade Marks of Psion Ltd.
earch Ltd. Quill, Easel, Archive and
Camberley, Surrey, GU15 ВВ.
Tel: Camberley (0276) 686100.
Automatic drive
Loading made easier from microdrive with this routine for
the Spectrum 48K by Robert Kirkland
his is а utility program for Spec-
trum users with microdrives. 1
often found that when I wanted a
program from а microdrive cartridge 1
first had to do a catalogue to check the
exact name of the program which 1 had
saved previously. Then I would load it
using Sinclair's very long winded Load
command.
This program prints out all of the
programs on a cartridge and all you do
is enter the number next to ће program
you wish to load, and it will be loaded
automatically. The program is saved
with the filename "run" on power up or
Basic - List 1
10 PRI
j „PAP
Li
мт RT 19,9; FLA:
ERE TOSH A Lë
AR
1; "сах
1
сы
Я j FLASI
(2058 64000
CLEAR
INPUT “Which Progr
IF рун! OR Р‹1 THE
бо TO 129
LET = (ар
ШЕТ 155444 (pan)
ізді?
9; LET
ET ASSES TES
Em
т:
THEN.
"ili asCODE
222
ao- -~-o е
X 000r DOOD @ ` ONNAN =
9069600000: M NGSUSUOSSSSSUS--5
AER обком: SODPOODNOO
GO TO 200
1; 28
after а new command, then the program
will load and run automatically.
This sounds fairly simple but itis very
difficult to get it down to an acceptable
time to do this. This is how the program
works.
The Catcommand can be used to send
the catalogue to an imaginary file “са!”
оп microdrive. Then a Cat command із
executed, sending the information to
Stream 4, Line 28. This information is not
actually put on to the microdrive until a
Closet command is executed. During
that time it is held in a microdrive
channel.
The program then uses a machine
code routine to find this information and
print it on to the screen. An assembly
listing of this program is given in Listing
Two. The filenames are then printed in
two Columns allowing 42 to be printed.
Lines 90-140 decide which column to
print in, 150-160 see if all have been
printed, 170-380 print the number given
io the filename, 390-400 print a right
hand bracket, 410-490 print the fileneme,
The Clear} command is then used to
clear the channel data. When you enter
the number of the program to be loaded
then the program finds the position of the
filename on the screen and builds up the.
name in a$,120-160. Then the program or
code is loaded.
The program must use microdrive
number 1 and code must be saved with а
# sign at the end of the filename.
эн 1;
ENT
INK
5
H 1; "PROG
1
аһ to loa
N ВЕЕР .5
)
‘SCREEN
IF bës"
DIANE AR 02 QD OOO JJOO ОЮЫ
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9
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1
з
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
i
1
1
gi
2
S
2
2
a
2
2
gi
2
3
3
3
3
3
3
3
3
3
3
4
4
4
4
4
4
4
4
“
“
0 AE ЧОР:
6696656565669555
Assembler - List 2
ORG беге
ENT g
CRLL 81801
ЕВН 5 өзе
Боль
ER EA
ED = Gia
LD AAO
СР 28
JR NZ,L4
io oí
ЕО Eis
LO а (HL)
СР 1%
RET 2
LO Я, 22
RST 16
LD. яр
RST 16
со Ас
Ср 16
JR GER
io ЯЕ
бес А
JR Le
io Gr
RST 16
РОЗН BC
PUSH DÉ
PUSH HL
bo, Bgg
ALL 82228
CALL #aDE3
БОБ” HL
POP DE
PQP Е
Lo 41
RST 16
Lë Bio
ER А, (HL)
RST 16
INC HL
DJNZ L3
INI HL
INC D
INC C
JR Lı
7-13 MARCH 1985
ВВС & Electron
Music while you work
Background music on your BBC B with the aid of
Philip Whitehead
his programme will play a tune
held in memory continuously,
while it carries out other tasks,
like listing a program, or loading from
tape. It can be used (о produce back-
ground music to liven up games, or to
relieve boredom while loading a long
program from tape. The program is
totally transparent to the user, is totally
machine code, and takes up less than 256
bytes of memory (plus the memory used
by the data for the music).
To create the interrupts, the interval
timer event, generated by the interval
time when it crosses zero, is used to call
the machine code routine every twenti-
eth of a second. The machine code then
calls an Osbyte routine to see if the
sound channel is clear. If it is, it reads ће
next note out of the table, else it jumps to
the next sound channel. Channels may
be enabled or disabled by the setting of
various flags in zero page, Notes are
stored in the following form:- length in
twentieths of a second, followed by fre-
quency of the note.
Zero page locations &70-&77 are used
to point to the 4 possible tables, two
bytes for each sound channel. If &FF is
stored in the hight byte, the code consid-
ers that channel disabled. &78-47F are
used to point to the note being read at
present, two bytes for each channel,
&8С-&8Е are used to to store ће enve-
in use for each sound channel.
8100-8107 are used as a parameter
block for the Osword command which
stimulates the sound command in Basic.
&108-&10/C ате used as a parameter
block for the set interval timer Osword
call. To signal the end of the music data
for a particular channel, &FF is written
into the length byte. This is followed by
the envelope to be changed to. Normal-
ly, a piece of music will start with this
code, in order to initialise the sound to
be used by the music. A ‘rest’ can also be
created by setting the envelope value to
то, and issuing а sound of the required.
which will now have a volume
level of zero amplitude.
Plenty of Rem statements have been
used, to make the program easier to
understand. The machine code section
has been extensively annotated with de-
scriptions of each section, in order to
give a chance for anyone with a knowl-
edge of machine code to adapt it for their
‘own purposes.
In order to convert music to numbers,
read the sound section in the user guide.
Tt contains all the information for convert-
ing notes on the music scale into num-
bers which the routine can use.
‘The program has been renumbered,
and so may easily typed in by using the
Auto command. The program is versa-
Ше, and can easily be adapted to many
uses. Note '£' in the listing should be
entered as '#".
Program Notes
Line No
10-120- Calls procedures & initialises
events.
130-850 - Data for demonstration music.
560-830 - Procsetup: sets up envelopes to be
used, parameter blocks, memory
positions of data tables, and reads in
the music data from the Data
statements.
ao-
1510- — Machine code section.
Zero page useage
AAT) -memory position of channel 0 data
(can be used as percussion)
812,813 -memory position of channel 1 data
814,815 -memory position of channel 2 data
&I6,&T] -memory position of channel 3 data
&18, usedastwo byte pointers to present
A&IF- note being read from each channel.
&80- шей by machine code to point to
channel being read (multiples of 2)
&81- usod by machine code to represent
channel number (has j the value of
480)
&8C- present envelope to be played for
&BF- particular channel.
1OREM Interrupt driven
20REM By P.D.whitehurst
3oPRÜCassemble, code
4OPROCsetup
SOREM Clear buffers
60*FX15,0
TOREM Initialise pointers and
BOREM set up interval timer
FOCALLinitialise
1OOREM Start events
110*FX14,5
120END
13OREM жжж Data for demo music ven
140DATA254,1:REM set envelope 1
150DATA15,69,5,77,10,89
160DATA20,105,10,105
170DATA10, 105,10,97,10,89
1ВОрАТА5,97,15,89,10,77
1900АТА15,69,5,77,10,89
2ООрАТА20,105,10,105
21008Т810,105,10,97,10,89
2200АТА10,97,15,89,5,77
[230DATA15,69,5,77,10,97
|240DATA30,89
[290DATA254,1
2560D4TA10,69,15,89,5,77
[270DATAS,69,20,57,5,69
I2BODATA10,89,10,105,10,97
music
290DATA30,89
300DATA10,77,10,89,10,85
310DATA5,77,20,69,5,61
3200АТА10,69,15,89,5,77
SSODATASO , 69
SAODATA10,69, 15,89, 5,77
SSODATAS,49,20,57,5,69
3460DATA10,89, 10,105, 10,97
370DATA15, 89,5, 97,5, 105, 10,109
SBODATA15,105,5,97,10,89
390DATA15,77,5,69
400DATA15,49,5,77,10,97
410DATASO,89
420DATAZSS, 255
430REM accompanyment
4400АТА254,2:КЕМ set envelope 2
450DATA60, 41,60,61 CODE
|460DATA120,41,60,61,175,4
la70DATA60, 61,15,69,15, 69
ABODATASO, 41
|A90DATA255, 255
ISOODATA254,2:REM set envelope 2
51ОБАТА6о,69,60,77,60,69,60,77,60,69
5200АТА120,659,60,77,175,69
SSODATAGO,77,15,37,15,37
IS4ODATASO , 69
|55ОВАТА255,255
IS20DEFPROCSetup
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&40REM Set for
65071. e 2r
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GBORE channe
BOOREADA
BIOREADA
8206%=С
B3OENDP
BAODEFPROCassenble code
ВФОовчога-ЕРЕҒІ
BéOosbytestFFFA
70FORPASS-OTD2STEP-
SEO”
В9ОГОРТ PASS
900. event РНА: TXA: PHA: TYA: PHA
— LDY£1:LDAEA: J
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BBC & Electron
1150\ increment
и РАВ,
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11B0LDYE91
1908TA&BC, Y store in table
read next note
210. sound
up sound parameter table
1
1
1
12003MP1
1
1
1
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> t rect sound
STAKLOS
STAL104
note
pointe note
АСЕ
next channel
үп: 3МР1 оор
AY: PLA: TAK: PLA:
7-13 MARCH 1985
Paint it black
A machine-code screen dump for the Dragon 32 and
CGP 115 printer! plotter by A Jones
his program was designed for use
with a Dragon 32 and a Tandy
CGP 118 Plotter/Printer and simi-
lar printers.
Thave seen Basic programs that do this
job but they seem to take a long time to
produce a screen dump.
This program produces a copy of the
and the actual picture in black to repro-
duce a faithful copy. I have also included.
instructions to reverse a display if the
screen is a black background and the
picture foreground is white, otherwise
the pen would soon be exhausted.
The program produces a copy of
twice the pixel size of the screen along
set on the current line to save time.
The program was developed on Drag-
on's АП Dream Editor Assembler, of
which a listing of the plot program is
included. I have also produced a Basic
listing for those without an assembler
which will save the machine code on
tape if the instructions are followed.
When the machine code program is
saved and required for use from switch
on, type Clear 200,8H7E00 and press
Enter. Then CLoadM"PLOT" and press
Enter to load.
Use Exec &НТЕОІ to use the plot pro-
gram. If it is required to plot from a black
background before executing the pro-
high resolution black and white display (һе length of the plotter's paper. It also gram, type Роке &H7E48,&H27 POKE
with the background cleared to white scans a line to check there are по points 4H7E68,&H27 POKE &H7EBD,&H27.
“E21 A----SCREEN DUMP ТО CGP-115----1 2Е60 BD2EC2 JSR PRINIR
HSH &----ЕВОМ PHODE 4 PCLSS ~. 4 2:28 2006 BRA FIN2
ЭЕ@1 E01 ORG 47Е01 2Е22 CE7E@A ` wn LDU алоо: "QUE б BIT
KI PUT 84Е21 2Е25 В02ЕС2 JSR PRINTR
2Е01 2028 BRA BEGIN 2:28 4--FINISHEU PLOT OR MOUE----—--
7EQ3 4820322C38 ORAWI FCC "2-2, ЛЕРІНЕ PEN — 2Е28 SC FIN? aen JING COUNTER
эғев восе FCC 40,448 MOVEMENTS. 2Е29 Org СИРВ asco GALL DONE?
FEBA 5220922638 MOVE! FCC #Я-2,0* ?E7B 2785 BEG кїнп!
ЭЕ@Е 0098 FCC 40,449 2Е20 308820 LEAK 22,Х
?Е11 49922030 DRAH? FCC 'J2,0" 2Е80 2051 SRA LOOP!
2Е15 рва FCC 7:82 4--FIRST PLOT DONE
7E12 3232263 MOVE? ЕСС 2582 3--5МІЕТ PAPER-
7E1B open FCC 2Е82 CE7EID | FINN: LOU @SHIFT
2Е10 523026209} SHIFT FCC 2Е85 BD2EC2 JSR PRINTS
7E22 оода FCC 7Е88 3--РЕН MOVING RIGH -=+
2Е24 5234923020 START FCC 7E88 А684 LOOP? LDA ,Х ТОЕТ A BYTE
2£29 3000 zer эва В4?ЕЗС ANDA ANO — jSIRIP BIT
ЭЕ2В ва FCC 7E8D 2608 SNE NPLOT2
2Е2С RNB ЈЕВР СЕЗЕ!: LOU sDRAH2 (907 A BIT
2Е20 7Е92 BD7EC2 JSR PRINTR
E20 8612 BEGIN LOA 418 ;SET GRAPHIC 2Е95 2006 BRA FIND
?E2F BDBCFS JSR 99075 MODE ЗЕ? CE2E1? | NFLOT2 LOU SHOVE? jMOVE A BIT
DE СЕ2Е24 LOU 4START eut PEN TO ESA ВО?ЕС2 JSR PRINTR
ЭЕЗЗ BD?EC2 JSR PRINTR START E90 4--FINISHEO PLOT OR lOUE--------
7698 8Е0604 FINI! рх 45ТАЯТ BYTE £90 SA FIN DECB oer COUNTER
E38 8080 REPD LDA iSET'ANO'BYTE ESE 2785 BEQ ҒІмп2 — va DONE?
2Е90 В22Е2С STA EAD 0830 EAX -92,* INERT BYTE
?E4Q SF NMEXIS CORB CLEAR #87 ERS 2089 BRA LOOP? ;00 AGAIN
E41 A4--TEST IF LINE СЦ 7EAS %--5ЕСОМО PLOT DONE~
E41 3419 PSHS X emt x? KN A--SMIFT PAPER -
2543 1684 NEXT LDA X jLET A ВНЕ, EAS CEJE10 ` "mmm LOU ASHIF! jSHIFT PAPER
245 842Е2С ANDA AND — ;SIRIP ar, PEAS Ә02ЕС2 JSR PRINIR
2Е48 2685 BNE SET JSRANCH !F 1 7EAB S—-NEXT ROW ОҒ P!XELS-----------
Ean 3519 PULS X ;SESTORE ve TEAB 242Е2С LSR AND jLL 8 DONE?
EAC SF res CLEAR 78 ZERE 2629 BNE МЕХТВ 290 AGAIN.
.JE4D 2014 BRA LOOP! CONTINUE. __2ЕВӘ 9901 LEAX 1,40 GNEXT BYTE.
"pue SC SE! — INCE. $900 + то" 2282 82620 СИРХ 48628 rat DONE?
ESO CICA гпРВ азса rat CLEAR? 2ЕВ5 2684 ЕМЕ REPO 00 AGAIN.
2Е52 2225 BEQ CLR jLL DONE. ЕВ? —F INI SHED-~
2554 308820 LEAX 22, — jNEXI BYTE 7EB? 8641 RESET LDA а?а ЗЗЕЗЕТ TEXT
2Е52 20n BRA NEXT — ;NEXT BYTE. ?EB9 BOBCFS JSR 48СҒ5 MODE
753 3510 ПЕ тих RESTORE "X^ "ERC 8600 LOA as9
ESB CE2£10 LOU sSHIFT JEBE ВОВСЕЗ JSR sBCFS
7ESE В02<С2 JSR PRINTR УЗНАЕТ PAPER, 2ЕСІ 39 RIS
2561 2042 BRA FINN2 |NEXT ROW. 2ECZ %--5ЕМ0 TO PRINTER ROUTINE--
%63 A--CONTINUE WITH PLOT- - 9Et2 2603 PRINIR LDA yur
7E62 8084 Loop: LOA ,Х ЕТ A BYTE ECA 2785 BEQ FINS
7Е65 B42E2C ANDA AND STRIP BIT 7EC6 BDBCFS JSR 38075
7E68 2608 SNE NPLOT! 7ECS 20F2 BRA PRINTR
зва A--PEN MOVING LEFT: ЗЕСВ ЭЗ FINS RIS
"ppm CEZEQ3 LDU адаы: LOT ө BIT 2ЕСС
POPULAR COMPUTING WEEKLY
19 CLEAR2@@, &H7E@O
20 REM EXAMPLE PROGRAM
3@ PMODE4 :PCLSS:SCREEN!,1
40 FOR A=5@ TO 100
58 CIRCLE(40 *6, 96), 571
60 NEXT а
20 EXEC &H7E@1
5 REM DRAGON SCREEN DUMP TO CGP
19 CLERR200, &H7E@6
20 CLS(3):PRINT@128, "LOADING DATA.”
30 FOR A=&H7E@] TO &H2ECB
130 CSAVEN"PLOT", Н?Е@1 , &H2ECB, &H2EG1
140 CLS3:PRINT@128, "PROGRAM SAVED. "
150 DATA 20, 2A, 4A; 2D, 32, 2C, 30, D, 0, 52; 2D,
32, 2, 30,D, 0, 4A, 32, 2C, 30, D, 8, 52, 32, 2C, 38
;D, 0, 52, 38, 2C, 2D, 31, 0,0
160 DATA 52, 34,32, 30, 2C, 30, D, @, 0, 86, 12,B
D, BC, FS, CE, 7E, 24, BD, 7E, C2, 8E, 6, 0, B6, 88, B
?,7Е,2С
128 DATA SF, 34,10,А6,84,84,7Е,2С,26,5,35
» 18, SF, 20, 14, 5C, C1, CO, 27, 5, 30, 88, 20, 20, E
A
115
48 READ A$ :B=B+UAL ("BH"+A$)
58 POKE A, VALC"&H" +A$)
6@ NEXT
7@ IF BO19526 THEN PRINT"DATA ERROR, PLEI
ASE CHECK. ":END
89 PRINT"CODE IS IN POSITION."
98 PRINT8224,"POSITION TAPE IN RECORDER
AND"
188 PRINT@288, "SET
ENTER. "
119 IF INKEYS-""THEN 110
128 CLS3:PRINT@128, "SAVING PROGRAM. "
TO RECORD, THEN PRESS
180 DATA 35, 18, CE; 7E, 1D, BD, 7E,C2, 20, 42,8
6,84, B4, 7E, 2C, 26, B, CE; 7E, 3, ВО, 7E, C2, 20, 6|
198 DATA СЕ, E, A, BD; 7E, C2, 5C, C1, C8, 27, 5,
30, 88, 20, 20, E1, CE; 7E, 1D, BD, 7E, C2, A6, 84
200 DATA B4, 7E, 2С, 26,8, CE, 7E, 11, BD 7E, C2
‚28,6, CE, 7E, 17, ВО, 2E, C2, 5A, 27, 5, 30, 88, ER
218 DATA 20,E3, CE, 2E, 1D, BD, 2E, C2, 74, 7E, 2]
C, 26,30, 30, 1, 8,6, 20, 26, 84, 86, 41, BD, BC, F|
5
228 DATA 86,D,BD, BC, F5, 39, 06, CA, 27, 5, BD,
С,Ғ5,20,Ғ2,39
7-13 MARCH 1985
^"
бесопа аеа!
Part Two of last week's Star Game for те CPC 464,
Poker by Terry O'Neil
Strained brain? Then you've present the remainder of the program. Enjoy yourself and don't lose your
H: you got aching fingers? Poker all last week. This week, we #signs.
probably been busy typing in Remember, £ signs should be entered as shirt.
"HS DATA 2,4,32,1,4,122,2,4,115,2,2,1002,4,102,2,4,12
246 DATA 2,4,32,3,1,228,4,3,91,4,3,228,2,1,91,2,4,72
247 ВАТА 2,4,22,2,4,104,2,2,108,2,4,102,1,4,170,2,4,22
248 DATA 2,4,32,2,4,112,2,4, 105, 111,1,3,118,2,3,32
249 DATA 2,3,37,4,3,215,4,3,11,4,),214,1,3,22,2,5,01
250 DATA 2,5,12,2,5,32,2,3,22,2,3,32,2,3,32,2,3,113
251 DATA 2,5,75,2,2,22,2,2,22,2,2,М,2,2,22,2,5,2
3,228,1,3,32,1,3,21,1,3,21,1,2,121,2,3,32
3 101,2,4,115,2,4,114,2,4,22
4,115,2,4,98,2,4,102,2,4,32
AV
20: IF ASsCHRS!IZ) THEN 6010 200
255 DATA 2,4,22,2,1,228,4,2,81,4,2,228,2,1,41,2,4,2
ГЕ 2% DATA 2,4,72,2,8,106,2,4,110,2,4,103,1,4,120,2,,12
257 МА „105,2,4,111,1,2,91,2,3,22
PRINT їп, ТЇ 258 DATA 4341171535117 1,5,32,2,3,91
mm 259 DATA EE
250 DATA KKK?
DEAL CARD ster: 261 DATA 22233
TIME 262 DATA 4,114,2,4,32
ENT (AND 1) 95242) 263 DATA 102,2,4,32
209 RER CHECK ІР CARD 15 ALREADY DEALT зыта EK
û 1F PACK (CARD 265 DATA 120,2,4,32
1 REN FIND SUIT
CARD (=13 THEN
256 DATA
267 DATA
268 DATA
91
Div
HEEL 288 DATA
10 216 270 DATA 2,4,226,1,3,32.
dÉ '? THEN SUIT=3:PACK (CARD
ШЕП DIETERLEN
215 SUIT = A:PACKICARI m 2 2,3,100,2,4,102,2,4,32
216 IF EL THEN 6090 228; ,225,5,1,92,2,4,22.
U7 1F THEN CARDS=HS(F):PEN £2,3 28,2,4,102,1,4,120,2,1,22
28 IF THEN CARDS=CS(F):PEN £244 x
ИЗ THEN CARDS=S$(F):PEN DA
220 IF THEN CARDS (FI PEN {1,1 32,2,4,93
11Р THEN CLS EV:PRINTEX, CARI 31244,1;
IF FC=10 THEN FOR Tat ТЇ 100
22 Ира COL Ui SSULT
4 RETURN
5 REM FIND COLOUR CARD
228 IF F=12 AND SUITs1 THEN RESTORE 242:5010 238
кет T
,101,2,4,116,2,4,114,2,4,22
,4,%,2,4,40,2,4,22
27 AND SUIT=1 THEN RESTORE 251:60T0 238 1,4,226,1,5,25,1,3,226,1,4,93,2,4,32.
228 IF Fell AND SUIT=L THEN RESTORE 260:5010 238 3,108,2,4,110,2,6,102,3,4,120,2,4,32
AND 810752 THEN RESTORE 269:5010 238
AND SUIT-2 THEN RESTORE 278:80T0 228 288 DATA 2,4,22,2,4,112,2,8,105,2,8,111,2,8,22,2,5,2
AND SUIT=2 THEN RESTORE 2876070 238 54,47 KKH
AND SUIT=3 THEN RESTORE 296:6070 238 2,
AND SUITS THEN RESTORE 305:6070 238
AND SUIT=3 THEN RESTORE 314:60T0 238
AND SUIT=4 THEN RESTORE 223:8070 238
1 THEN RESTORE 332:6019 238
IF Ға AND SUIT=4 THEN RESTORE 241:6070 238
238 CLS £X:FOR Sel TO S4
ETH
240 PAPER E1,POPLPEN DEn
5
241 RETURN
242 DATA 2,5,B1,2,3)32,2,3,32,2)
245 DATA 2,3,228,1,3,32,4,3,212,
244 DATA 2,3,32,1,3,99,2,4,101
8,4,1,41,4,1,225,1,4,45,2,5,2
08,244, 103,154, 120,2,,22
Vë UA 132
42 POPULAR COMPUTING WEEKLY
7-13 MARCH 1985
A&F SOFTWARE-UNIT 8 CANAL SIDE INDUSTRIAL EST,
WOODBINE ST EAST, ROCHDALE, LANCS 0416518 Tel-(0706) 341111
IT'S FOR THE
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t's available from April the 2nd
only £6.90 Ine, V.A.T.
а got over 100 screens
's available from all good
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It's also available direct from
An F Software
It's eggxactiy what you've been
waiting for
SIN
ES]
NULLI SECUNDUS.
—
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HERE'S WHAT YOU'VE SAID...
HERE'S WHAT IT IS... rm
The storylines travel through five time zones of our history - —
Prehistoric, Roman Empire, Medieval Britain, Colditz and the Caribbean,
where you come face to face with the evil Hugo Von Berg. He is holding us all to ransom and
demands to be made Emperor of the World, otherwise he will destroy it. A secret telephone
number direct to the British Prime Minister has been specially installed for you to ring when
you have worked out the code which will save us all. You must find this code and decipher the
telephone number.
The new Eureka! Hotline number is: 01-879 1166
We wish you all the best of luck in your search and to help you on your way, will
send you a FREE Guide to Adventure Games (no clues to the £25,000 though!) if you
send in a stamp plus your name and address to us.
Happy searching!
DOMARK LTD, 204 WORPLE ROAD, LONDON 59/20 8PN
SPECTRUM £14.95 g £14.95 COMMODORE
48K 2 64
ENGLISH, FRENCH AND (SOON!) GERMAN VERSIONS AVAILABLE FROM
ALL GOOD SOFTWARE SHOPS OR FROM US ON 01-947 5624
Ореп Еогит
Windmill
on Enterprise
Having seen a couple of programs dem-
onstrating the graphic capabilities of the
either for Open Forum, the machine pages or Star Game. When sending ina
wherever
for publication -
Program listing should be sent, together with, possible, a copy
"oi more than 1000 words - should start with « general description f. the program, what it does, and then some
The following program, Windmill,
draws a circular pattern, similar to the
effects obtained with old Spirograph
sets, using turtle graphics. It then uses
the very powerful Set Palette command
to cycle through the colours. Different
saved оп cassette.
Documentation - usually
detail of how the program itself is constructed. We pay very competitive rates, according to the length and nature of the program and the
quality of the accompanying documentation.
plot and angle values may need chang-
ing. Hidden construction of the pattern
could be achieved by adding the follow-
ing:- 105 Set Palette 0,0,0,0.
This simply sets all the Inks to black.
The rest of the program then cycles
The Music Box
Amstrad, I decided to see what could be values for the Right command will give through the colours, revealing the
achieved on the Enterprise 64. interesting effects, although the initial pattern.
90 PROGRAM "windmill"
100 GRAPHICS
11@ OPTION ANGLE DEGREES
120 PLOT 582,620
150 PLOT ANGLE 98
140 FOR Е=0 ТО 40
150 FOR Ізі TO 3
160 SET INK I
170 PLOT RIGHT 157;FORWARD 200
180 МЕХТ
190 NEXT
208 DO
210 БЕТ PALETTE BLACK,BLUE,RED,GREEN
220 SET PALETTE BLACK ,RED , GREEN , BLUE —
250 SET PALETTE BLACK,GREEN, BLUE,RED Be
240 LOOP
Making
music
о start with, it's back to
d KEE
of whose points 1 cov-
ered last week. Regular read-
ers will recall that the micro
concerned in this letter was
the Amstrad. (Irregular read-
ers should hang their heads
in shame.)
Now, I must confess to а
degree of ignorance about
the Amstrad, although I have.
been seeing it around more
in recent weeks. One plea I
have is for all you musical
Amstrad owners to write in
with tips, complaints, advice,
requirements or whatever.
Тһе one point left over from
the Tatam letter after last
week, 1 can deal with,
however.
Аз a matter of fact, this is a
topic I've dealt with before —
but it's worth repeating, all
the same. The question is how
to interface a trumpet, which
has already been played
through a Vox Octavoice,
with the Amstrad.
1 know nothing about the
Vox, but assume it produces
analogue output - Tatam indi-
cates that it is some form of
octave divider, producing
trumpet and tuba sounds
from the trumpet input. Inter-
facing requires a digital sig-
nal and musical devices
which are not specifically
digital (which is to say, all of
them apart from the newer
synths and drum machines)
must be converted into digital
signal sources.
In general, this is done by
use of an analogue-to-digital
converter, which is an elec-
tronic device which converts
voltage levels into numbers
and is thus able to sample a
musical waveform. An acous-
ticinstrument must, of course,
first be played through a
mike or pick-up and some
form of electronic amplifica-
tion circuit. One should be
able to feed the output of a
device like the Vox direct
into an ADC.
Given the rapid conversion
speeds necessary and the
amount of memory required
to store the results of enough
samples to be useful, the tech-
nique is best used with a digi-
tal sound sampler (DSS)
which digitises a single musi-
cal sound and uses the data as
sort of template from which
to produce a variety of
synthesised sounds similar in
quality.
Аз far as I know, there are
no DSS systems for the
Amstrad — so that could be a
project for a musical Amstrad
owner with a soldering iron.
We have dealt with DSS sys-
tems for the Spectrum, Apple
and Commodore machines in
previous articles - which
brings me neatly to a news
item.
Ricoll Electronics have re-
cently announced a musical
keyboard interface allowing
you to play sampled sounds
using any standard 1 volt per
octave synth keyboard. The
DSS itself costs £177.78 and
the keyboard interface will
set you back another £41.95,
Further information may be
obtained from Ricoll at 48
Southport Road, Ormskirk,
Lancashire 139 1QR (tel: 0698
79100).
Finally, back to е
Amstrad and good news for
Amstrad owners in search of
music. Kuma Software have
just announced a package
called Music Composer for
the Amstrad which promises
to fill some of the gap in CPC
464 software. It provides all
the basic compositional facili
ties and sells for £9.98. Fur-
ther information from Kuma at
12 Horseshoe | Park,
Pangbourne, Reading RG8
TJW (tel: 07387 4335) and а
review from me as soon as
I've tried it.
Gary Herman
7-13 MARCH 1985
POOLSWIN DISCS ON A SPECTRUM!
‘THE ULTIMATE POOLS PREDICTION PROGRAM Жуу
(© MASSIVE DATABASE Pociswinner is a scphisticatd Pools We have obtained a small quantity of floppy disc interfaces
for the ZX Spectrum, ‘FIZ BOARDS’, which will interface апу
standard 52 drive on to your 48K Spectrum. Its own
internal operating system allows you to format discs, store
and retrieve both basic and code programmes and files,
catalogue, backup, delete files and all the normal disc
functions. Powered from the normal Spectrum supply it
needs no external supply and plugs straight on to the disc
drive.
Complete with blank disc and all instructions.
Interface only £65 inc VAT, P&P & Insurance.
CREMA Аал бк) бас) Pre. Appi шіге Complete system, including drive, only £199.
PRICE £15.00 (all inclusive) FIRST 50 ORDERS GET 5 EXTRA DISCS FREE.
KEMPSTON COMPATIBLE JOYSTICK INTERFACES £5.50 inc P&P,
We also service most types of home computers:
Sinclair, Commodore, Atari, TI, Oric etc.
Competitive Rates, Ring for details,
ALL ORDERS: CWO. ALLOW 14 DAYS FOR DELIVERY,
Electronic Maintenance Services Ltd
1397 Lincoln Road
Werrington
— * peterborough
— CHESHIRE. т 001-428 1425 PE4 6LT
(0733) 75025
ШШШ commodore 64
* deng asa mastercode assembler
Take out an annual subscription to Popular Computing Weekly using this form and take advantage of our
special offer price of only £10.00 for а М: code Assembler for the Commodore 64. The Mastercode is а
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POPULAR COMPUTING WEEKLY
Open Forum
Graphics
on Research 3807.
‘This program was first designed to just
act as a demonstration for the graphics
capabilities of the 380Z Microcomputer,
but then after watching some of the
children at my school trying to program
some animation into the machine, 1
realised that this program would be the
perfect tutor for how to use the ma-
Chine's sophisticated Display function.
‘This as it stands is a feature which is on
most home micros, but cannot be
accessed very simply. The advantages
of the Research machines is that you can
save a series of images into an area of
18 AS="RESOLUT ION": BS="CHARSIZE®: 'STPLOT*
26 ON BREAK 6010 328
rz
SOLUTION", 1, 1
memory ready to be displayed in rapid
succession.
After running the program, a rotating
cube appears - to move on the to the rest
of the program, press Ctrl 2, although
you may have to press it several times to
produce the result!
m:
T0 3
L*UPDATE* 2, K
8E CALL'OFFSET" 38,38
98 READ 1,
186 CALL"PLOT* X,Y
118 READ X,Y
128 IF të THEN 158
138 CALL*LINE*, X, Y
146 GOTO 118
15% NEXT К)
168 FOR 151 TO 28
178 FOR TO 8 STEP Е
188 FOR К=С TO D STEP Е
198 CALL*DISPLAY*,J,K
208 GA=BETS (S): IF 6
ТҮЗЕЛ
228 F=A:6=|
Book Ends
THEN 226
15070 168
Book ZX Spec
trum Whize Kid
Price 5596 Mi-
WWhiezKid /
If so you'll need a
very unusual Spectrum so
you can “press either the
Commodore or Shift key to
some of the symbols" or
ress the space bar to keep
playing” (should that be
Spectrum + Whizz Kid?).
These aren't crucial errors
but they're indicative of a
sloppiness that shouldn't rear
its head in a book meant for
young beginners. Nor should
variable “аф” in a listing be-
come “А” in ће notes.
There are numerous large
cartoonsbutIm notconvinced
that these compensate for the
brevity and possible lack of
clarity of the comments.
Ina highly competitive area
7-13 MARCH 1985
of computer publishing this is
unlikely to provide any "кій"
with enough “whizz” to make
it worth buying.John Minson
Book The Writ
er and the Word
Processor Price
12.95 Micro Any
Supplier Coro-
met Books, Mil
Rd, ` Dunton
Green,
Sevenoaks, Kent
TWIS2YE.
his book is rather a
cosy chat between
would-be novelists,
with а nod at journalists.
It's nota bad read, although
there is nothing here that
couldn't be picked up from a
dozen other publications — for
example, no really helpful
low-down on those printer
codes. The information given
would help no-one in decid-
ing which system to use, or
how to go about choosing one
for ease-of-use. Instead, the
book is a comfort to those
writers who, being complete-
ly computer-naive, may be
hesitating about taking the
plunge into word-
processing.
There are unfortunately a
few instances of that elitist
computer snob-erese that
says you have to spend a few
hundred pounds before any-
thing "serious" сап be done
with the computer — for exam-
ple, on page 163, we're told,
pretty categorically, ‘you
can't use a domestic TV set as
a screen for word process-
ing!” (author's italics). Rub-
bish! (my italics). Of course
you can, although it would
certainly be easier on the
eyes to use a monitor.
If you're wondering wheth-
er to invest in a word pro-
cessing outfit, read this book,
and it may give you an insight
into how other authors use
their computers — however, if
you want to find out how to
get your Hoity-Toity MkVI to
print in italics, it would be
cheaper and quicker to read
the manual supplied.
Tony Bridge
Book Capital Ra-
dio's Book of
Computers. and
ПТ Simple Pro-
ТТИ cramming Price
e £3.96 Micro Any
Supplier Intor-
face Publications
lad, 9/11 Ken-
singion ` High
Street, London
WE SNP.
hose who live around
London and listen to
Capitals XYZ On Air
will know the voice of Kelly
Temple. Now his grin posi-
lively beams out from page
six of this beginner's pro-
gramming guide.
In addition to the introduc-
tion to Basic his book contains
scanty reviews of several
micros and, an idiosyncratic
glossary of computer terms.
Оп the whole the book is
CAPITAL RADIOS
‘BOOK OP
COMPUTERS
ж
not actually bad, apart from
its unhelpful treatment of
computer mathematics — but
why anybody should buy a
general tutorial when so
many good ones dedicated to
specific micros are available
escapes me. John Minson
ат
continued from Раде 41
238 RHE
Du DATA 86, 88, 68,126,118, 118, 118,66, 68,66,0,8
258 DATA 165,59, 56,61, Sê, 189, 185, 111, 185,59, 114, 68,114, 182,165, 111,88
268 DATA 98,58,52,83,52, 107,98, 112,98, 58, 117,67, 117, 185,98, 112,8,8
278 DATA 92,57, 58, 64,58, 188,92, 115,92,57, 119,66, 119, 184,92, 115,8,8
788 DATA 85,57 49,45, 49, 105,85, 113, 85,57, 128,85, 20, 185,85, 113,0,8
298 DATA 78,57,58, 66,58, 14,78, 113,78,57, 113, 64,119, 186,78, 113,6,8
SWE DATA 71, 38,52, 67,525 103,71 112, 71,58, 117483,117, 167,71) 11:
SUB DATA 66, S1, 56,68,58, 182, 66,111, 66,57, 115 61,115, 109, 66,1115
3a рї?
we
34 GRAPH 1
358 CALL RESOLUTION’
EOE AEN
370 CALPLOT'
388 CALLYLINE® 158, Y1, ABCALL*LINE® 11, 88,
REI 158, Y, RiCALL*LIME* 1, 96,8
инетке!
СЕЕ
IO 270
430 FOR E=1 T0 155
\ CALL*COLOUR*, A, ESNEIT Е
Аза CALLYCLEAR™
UCD
ШАШ
АВР INPUT ‘CENTRE 1,/%45,15
498 INPUTPRADLT A,B (MAKE EQUAL FOR REGULAR SHAPE) "Hl, 8
‘SOO INPUT*NUNER OF SIDES (128 FOR CIRCLE)
518 INPUT*CONE GENERATION (Y/N) °; ICS: IFICR="N" THEN 548
S20 INPUT*POINT OF CONE I, ңір Ру
mmm 12
BU OH)
558 C=COS (ANGLE) :S*5IN (ANGLE)
5м Mael: Yel
EICH
900 nm
E
ан Weirig)
OIP IF 171 TIEN PSe"LINE" ELSE Phe*PLOT*
GES
‘O10 IF Ier THEN bS
CRLL*LIME*,PT,PY, 1i CALL*PLOT* ALANS, BIYAPVS, 16
mm нет 1
ТЕЗДЕ
ELCH
480 PUT 12:CALL"RESOLUTION* A4
498 FOR hel TO 398 STEP 2
708 CRLL'PLOT* 132,8,3
7 CALL'LIME*
726 CALL‘PLOT*, 132,4, 3
CALL LINE", 308,8.
TM NEIT A
796 CALL RESOLUTION"
768 FOR hel ТО 298 STEP 5
TH CALL*PLOT® 104,5
788 CALL*LINE® BÀ
79 CALL'PLOT* 1
ән сш ПИКЕ"
816 САЦ "РОТ", 156,4
820 CALL*LINE*, 34,8
аж нат A
BM CALL*RESOLUTION
ВОР FOR A=1 TO 468 STEP 5
Bb CALL*PLOT® PHSISTN LA RES, 141597) HSILCOS (A/ 18815. 141597), 3
B7B CALLLIRE* A 3
888 НЕТ û
SH GRAPH
mm 50508 1558:PUT 12
‘918 FOR ei ТО 191 STEP 5
528 CALL*PLOT®, 36¢(SIN(A)#2)43.14,8
938 CALLLINE®, 191,8,3
HIE UK TED
358 CALL'LIME* 191,191
960 CRLL*FLOT* , SBH(SIKUD 122. 14,4
978 CALL*LINE® A, 191
mes
998 PUT 21sAB=GETH(1) xCALL*RESOLUTION® 8, 9:PUT (12)
1888 FOR 151 10 3
1918 FOR Y=1 TO 191
1828 CALL*LINE®,2,¥,1
1938 CALL*PLOT®, 191, INTERIUS +1
1048 NEXT 1,1
1858 60508 1554.
eee MN
107 GRAPH ] : SRA Û
1888 CALL'RESDLUTION 1,4
we ren
118 FOR 158 TO 15
1118 САШ РТ",
HEET ét
1138 rer
1138 wn 1
DEG OH
1188 FOR 156 10 15
1178 CALLFILL* 11,¥
ПАШ
1198 MIT 1
12M 80908 15%
1218 FOR del TO IM STEP 2
1228 FOR del ТО 168
1230 САЦ ЖЕ", A, EA
1248 CALL*LINE*, В,
1250 САЦ ОНЕ", Ay,
1266 WEIT вуд
1276 gen 1558
1298 FOR А-1 10 58
1299 FOR Bet 10 58
138 CALL*LINE*, 88,8
1318 CALL'LINE" 88,6
1328 KIT A
138 gan 15%
1H FOR del 102 к
1358 FOR Pel TO 268
1368 CALLIE" A,B,
1378 CRLL'LIME*
1388 CALL*LINE®,
1798 САП РОЖЕ" В
таве кет B,A
1418 BOSUE 1550
1428 LET fel
из FOR B194 TO 6 STEP-1
1
1448 CRLLLINE A,
из CALL"LINE",B,A, B
A
1488 сий"
CALLE
сілі",
1488 FOR 198 10 18
15H FOR ri 10.44
1519 RUE
1828 CALLINE,1,,1
1598 KIT Y,1
1548 5070 1578
1558 САЦ "Оғы"
1568 RETURN
1578 GLEN:
—— Extension
by Russell Pacy
POPULAR COMPUTING WEEKLY
7
qT $ Brachistochronous
жыз - pn
EUR и.
— =
Ne
FALSO o ds
EE Н
ШЕ een Es =s
BEACHHEAD MY CHESS N - in
E die :5
SHERLOCK HOLMES اسسا ж m
—— Eien ses :5
— — зы
— ES J
DOOMDARKS REVENGE. RAID OVER MOSCOW 3 58
EC — E
FRAN SEN BA S MER — 8
MONTY MOLE — Cheques etc, payable to:FREECREST LTD
Kon —— Send to: IT'S, 33 FOSCOTE ROAD, LONDON NW4 3SE Enquiries: 01-430 2284
Em SE et
мг Жош
Bei —
JET SET WILLY y FIGHTER PLOT
Балтас E
TRAVEL WITH TRASHMAN COMBAT ue,
QUASIMOOOS REV. ——
je IMPOSSIBLE MISSION. 1
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bee A PRACTICAL APPLICATION
— р FOR YOUR MICRO
GREAT SPACE RACE 1 Calc Electric measures the electrical consumption and electrical
DECHE, Tunning cost of your whole home, office, or even individual
HL MUS appliance, to a high degree of accuracy. Tesis may be run for long
‘BOULDER DASH — ___ periods; then power and costs may be displayed as graphs. System
GHOSTBUSTERS PLEASE NOTE IF OUR ORDER. із ready to use in minutes and requires по electrical connection to
‘BRIAN BLOODAXE 1 EXCEEDS 150 YOU GET mains. Includes interface, sensor and program cassette. Available
ZS — fon Commodore 64 now: other micros soon-
٤ Cheques, Р.О. for £24.95 (including and VAT) or SAE for
‘ALL LEVEL 9. GOOOBYTE POWO details, to: @ 9 рар е)
PROJECT FUTURE. M LEATHER LANE, LONDON ECT
ит : Пата o ETALON
— y TEORIEE 26 High Street, Merstham, SURREY RH1 3EA
GIVE YOUR CHILD AN ADVANTAGE
WITH GCE SOFTWARE BY LCL
MICRO ENGLISH
FOR BBC AND ELECTRON Punctuation @ Advonced
Speling (ike on advanced "Specieond-Soell' machine) € Vocabulary
tests (meonings of words) ® Figures of speech ond arrangement (6.0
зате, metophors ond oliteroton) € Words commonly confused ө
тесйс plurals 9 Word reduction for summones ® 8 passages to be
summarised € B comprehension tests. each passage hovng 20 questions.
MICRO MATHS ғоя пас, evectron,
VIC, CBM64, SPECTRUM, PET, 2Х81
Foctorisation of Rigebraic equations, simple ond compound interest,
Stotistis, Trigonometry, Differenbotion, soluton of tangles using Sine ond.
Cosine formuloe, percentages and froctons, changing bases of numbers,
indces in Algebra. simior triangles. oppications of Pythagoras Theorem,
profit and loss. simplification n Algebra, гоо and proporbon, polygon
properties, graphs, solution of Algebro equations, vectors, Geometry of
the олде ond its chords, motrices, operotons on numbers in different
boses smutoneous equations
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{hree tapas trom our shop whenever you wish; orf you order by post, all we ask 14
0p post pecking per tape. The renta ia perfectly ree in ether casa
| What's more, you can sell your surplus software о ether members (we have over
5,0001) and recoup the cost of membership in no time at all. We offer hoge
discounts on peripheral» and tapes... and ао much more. Phone us пом an
20 892732, quoting your Access number, or return the coupon without delay!
Е ORDERED!
10% DISCOUNT IF 2 OR МОА =
ыыы Лл тт;
PLEASE SEND MICRO ENGUSH MICRO MATHS
а ти .. COMPUTER AT £25 EACH INC Р. & P.
SEND CHEQUE, Р.О. TO:
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enclose cheque/P.O. fort
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hese "боф Tide is по? Cossette Package.”
7-13 MARCH 1985 49
48K SPECTRUM
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The definitive role playing
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ING WEEKLY
Аугіоп Ups
тп very pleased to be
able to print the first
Amstrad 464 Pokes this
week and my thanks go out to
T. A. Shah of Blackburn for a
very enjoyable letter, and for
his sterling work in working
them ош. As 'Т' says, "1
would like all Amstrad own-
ers to appreciate my efforts -
it was very difficult without a
disassembler." Well I'm sure
that they do and without fur-
ther ado here are the listings.
They should be typed in be-
fore running the programs
and wil automatically skip
the Basic loaders.
Electro Freddy:- 10 Memo-
ry 10000 | 20 Load "Al" | 30
Load "A2" | 40 Load "A3" |
50 Load “А4” | 60 Load "А5"
110 Роке 39356,256 | 80 Call
39323 (NB. 255 is the number
of lives)
Punchy:- 10 Memory &1FFF
120 Load "Code" | 30 Роке
&20А9, 285 | 40 Сай &2000
Roland On The Ropes:- 10
Memory 4800 | 20 Load
“Roland.D" | 30 Load
"Roland.C" 38 Ink 0,1: ink 1,
26: ink2, 20: ink 3,6 | 40 Poke
25804,0: Роке - 25562,0 | 50
Call 41100 (N.B. The minus
poke numbers are correct!)
Hunchback 10 Border 0: ink
0,0: ink 1,18: ink 2,8: ink 3,28 |
20 ent 1, 100, 2,2 / 30 ent 2,90, -
6,2 / 40 env 12, 10, -2, 10 / 80
реп? | 60 Memory &ЗВЕР | 70
Load “HUN 3", 84С00 | 80
Роке 861Ғ8, 1 | 90 Poke
&61F9, 1 / 100 Poke&6lF8 +
18, 1 / 110 Poke &61F8 + 19,1
1120 Роке &61F8 + 26,1 | 130
Poke &61F8 + 27,1 | 140 Poke
20162,0 | 180 Сай &5431 (МВ.
Most of these pokes аге пес-
essary to initialise the game
colours, sound, etc.)
The letter then goes on to
say that since buying his 464
his old Spectrum has seemed
so weedy that he can't bear to
touch it again, despite the dif-
ficulty of getting software for
the Amstrad. This is doubt-
less aggravated by the fact
that “ош of 400 Spectrum
games Гуе ever had, the only
ones that have been worth the
money are Halls of the Things
by Design Design, Manic
Miner by Software Projects,
Lords of Midnight by Hewson
Consultants, Jet Pac and
Knight Lore by Ultimate. Val-
halla and Hobbit were £30
down the drain”.
Of all the games listed
above "Т" has finished them
all without cheating and says
that the most enjoyable was
Avalon. Here are his tips on
how to finish so stop reading
now if you don't want to know.
‘I finished the game in
three days of it being deliv-
ered - the main tips are 1)
Make a map! 2) Find the
‘wriggly’ sword 3) Find the
wraithbane spell 4) Find the
amulet 5) Find the sword
Caliburn 6) Find the cup of
Power. Make the servant car-
ry the wriggly sword and go
over the goblins with it to kill
them. To kill wraiths activate
the wraithbane and move into
them. The amulet reflects the
fireballs of the Lord of Chaos.
To destroy the Lord put the
sword Caliburn over the
cube with faces on.
“Although skulls and skele-
tons in the foreground cannot
be examined you will find
some in the background
which contain keys if you pass
your servant over them. If
уоп hold the cheese over the
mousehole, if you have found
them, you will catch a mouse
and this can be used to gnaw
the rope that ties a key to a
wall.
“То get to the Lord of Cha-
ов you will find 5 or 6 stones
with images on them. Dump
these on the flashing ‘wheel’
on the floor and a door will
appear which takes you to the
bottom level. The stones are
hidden in pools, trapdoors or
have something guarding
“To get the Caliburn and
the cup of Power you need
the ‘find’ spell. The cup is in
the chamber next to the find
spell and the sword is in the
scorpion's room which is
near to the image of a lady's
face in the wall (kill the scor-
pion with the sword). Both
items are invisible but acti-
vate the spell and run the
‘eye’ over the back walls.”
‘Thanks very much for the tips
and please write again. Can
anyone help “Т” to find the
seven odd wizards that are
supposed to be in Avalon.
Someone who seems to
Games Wizard Competition
Play the games,send in your high scores on the form and you
could become The Games Wizard.
Commodore ВВС 5 Amstrad
Technician Ted Sorcery
3D Star Strike Splat!
Game 1 Suicide Express Elite
Game 2 Beach Head ^ JetPac
Game 3 Shoot the Rapids Chuckie Egg Cycione ic Miner
have found them is Robert
Muir of St. John’s Wood Lon-
don. Robert's letter arrived in
the same postbag as the one
above, во 1 really can't say
who was first to finish.
Whilst on the subject of
epic ‘firsts’ how about this
letter from Michael Groen of
Enfield who finished Gift from
the Gods on Dec 28th to те-
ceive the final message ‘Hail
Orestes! King of Mycenael’
For those still struggling here
are a few tips from Michael.
“Most of the shapes are illu-
sions. To kill a monster keep
scything at it until it is stunned
- a buzzer then sounds
(sounds like The Price is
Right to me). You can then
stab at the stationary creature
and it will disappear." More
excitement next week.
Топу Kendle
Game Wizard Entry Form
Micro
Game 1 score:
Game 2 score:
Game 3 score:
Name
Address ...
Your signature
Witness's signature —
7-13 MARCH 1985
5
Tony Bridge’s Adventure Corner
Help, please!
own straightaway to the Help this
week; well, almost away! First of
all, I want to pass on some very
sad news - Popular's sister magazine,
MicroAdventurer is no more. The soft-
ware market is rather depressed at the
moment (though not depressing, I think),
and circulation, while growing rapidly,
was not growing rapidly enough to keep
the old wolf from the door. I shall miss
the magazine a great deal, and I would
like to think that some of you out there
will miss it too. 1 very much enjoyed
being a small part of it, and also enjoyed
the rapport we had with many of the
readers,
Alison Martyn wrote many months ago
about Colossal Adventure, from Level 9.
ls been a long time, Alison, and 1
suppose you have sorted this one out by
‘now, but it's an interesting problem, and
the one that several other adventurers
have written about. To get the platinum
Pyramid - When іп Y2, say Plugh. This
will return you to the Building at the start,
where you can deposit your treasure.
Now, saying Plugh again, then Plover,
will send you to the Plover room, lamp in
hand, from where you can travel to the
Dark Room and the Elusive Pyramid.
From one superb subterranean ad-
venture to another, the second part of
the Zork trilogy. George Lusher wants
some guidance (‘по obvious answers
please, just hints and clues’ he says) in
getting past the Dragon, and the Lizard
Head. Just try attacking the Dragon,
George, then lead it to а cold place. As
for the Lizard Head Door, you will need a
golden gift from a grateful unicorn, and
Some sweet insects from an evaporated
pool.
The dark, dank caves are a favourite
setting for adventures, and another, that
takes place largely underground, is
Mountains of Ket, the first part of the Ket
Trilogy. The skull is proving a bit of a
headache for many people - and so it
should, being the last location in what
was the run-up to a nice little prize (this
has, of course, been claimed now by
master adventurer Tom Frost).
Although many adventures put a pre-
mium on grabbing and keeping as many
treasures as possible, in this instance,
the player must have only three: the
Skull will then open and the end of the
game is nigh. Those items are 8, 36, 25.
‘The hat, incidentally, is to be found miles
from the Skull, on a plateau — to reach the
mountains, you must ascend from the
east end of the caves. And don't forget to
take your medicine with you!
To find the Mint Room, go east several
times from the Guard - once there, 30, 2
and 39, 14 (excruciatingly obvious, isn't
itt).
David Scott had a tip that will come in
handy to those of you trying to get into
Part five of Eureka! ‘All you «о, he says,
‘is play the arcade game and then load
the adventure. When the program asks
you the first question, you must press
Caps Shift and Break as the same time. А
flag and a message will then appear on
screen. If you wait a while, this will soon
disappear and you are soon into the
adventure!’ Thanks, David - now, can
someone please tell us all how to escape
the dreaded brain-sucking boredom of
those arcade games?
But there are some people who, de-
spite all reason, still wade through the
wavering blobs to play the adventure —
like Justin Travis, who wants to know
how to get past the Green Knight in
Number Three. He also asks: "Where do
find Morkin, іп Doomdark's Revenge?.’
You could try looking as the top of the
map, Justin, in the Icy Wastes. As you'll
know, it is not normally possible to cross
the icy Wastes, but Doomdark contains
some very handy tunnels.
S F Hollinshead, a name we've seen
before in the Corner, has a tip for those
Eurekans stuck in the Roman Adventure.
"То find the Swamprose, go 9, 26, 32, 26,
8 from the south gate of Rome."
I have mentioned Podzelski before,
but don't actually know who produces it,
Adventure Helpline
Going bananas? М you are stuck in am
Adventure with nowhere 10 turn do not
despair - help is at hand.
Fill in the coupon, explaining your prob-
lem, send it to us, and a fellow adventurer
may be able to help.
Remember — the system only works if
those adventurers who have solved the
puzzles get in touch. Every week is Save An.
Adventurer Today (SAAT) week!
.. on (Micro)
how much it costs, or what it is all about
(one doesn't get much of a clue from the
title, after alll); but David Thorpe does,
and has kindly sent a few hints to help
others. Чп order to escape the Wine
Cellar, 33, 7, 18, 40, 28, 1, 24. And, when
in the Bedroom, don’t shut the window,
whatever happens. If you get to the Hall,
try 37,8, 16, 29! In the Police Cell, don't
leave the telephone ringing for too long.
Can anyone help me with my problem in
this game? How do I stop the deaf man's
hearing aid exploding when I give him
the battery? Sounds a load of fun! Write
to David at 46 Frimley Road, Camberley,
Surrey GUIS 3UX.
A name that is never far from Help
columns is Scott Adams, and we now
come to the first questions I've received
about his new Questprobe adventure,
Spiderman. This is from A Bimpson, from
“The Funny Farm for Frustrated Adven-
turers in Wigan’! He wants to know how
to get past the Fan, and how to defeat the
Ring Master. There are two ways of
stopping the fan. The slow way is to
repeatedly 11, 4, 23, 41, 17. This will
eventually slow down and halt the fan,
buta quicker way is to 34, 13. When you
meet the ringmaster, just close your
eyes and he will tell you what to do next!
Mr (?) Bimpton sends a couple of clues
for other problems in the adventure: To
get the Gem from Hydroman, 33, 27 and
to find some of the Web Formula, 38, 13,
18, 3, 31.
То round up the Help for this week, 1
have had a plea from Pete Stone of
Palace Software, the distributor of that
lovely adventure, Valkyrie 17 (help
coming for this soon!) He has been
inundated with phone calls from frustrat.
ed adventurers (in Wigan?) ~ “Please,
he cries in a weak voice, "Don't call us,
we don't know any answers!" Somebody
who does know is Kit Watson, of 35
Ordnance Street, Chatham, Kent ME4
65]. If you're in trouble, send him an SAE
and he will help you out. A couple of
hints I can give now are: To break into
the safe, you 35, 16, 10. To put the
Security Camera out of action, 22, 6.
1 SMASH 2 WAND 3 7:5 4 WEB 5 ON 6
CAMERA 7 BOTTLE 8 CLOAK 9 SOUTH 10
STETHOSCOPE 11 SHOOT 12 GRILL 13 PIC-
TURE 14 POLO 15 FROM 16 THE 17 IN 19
HAPPY 20 ADVENTURING 21 EVERYBODY 22
SPRAY 23 FLUID 24 DOOR 25 HAT 26 EAST 21
THERMOSTAT 28 TO 29 CHANDELIER 30
WAVE 31 OFFICE 32 SOUTHWEST 33 USE 34
‘THROW 35 WEED 36 BEARD 37 SWINGING 38
RIP 39 SAY 40 SHELF 41 AT 42 USE
This series of articles is designed for novice
and experienced Adventurers alike. Each
week Tony Bridge will be looking at different
Adventures and advising you on some ol the
problems and pitfalls you can expect to
encounter. So, if you have an Adventure you
want reviewed, or if you are stuck in an
Adventure you cannot progress any further
write to: Tony Bridge, Adventure Corner,
Popular Computing Weekiy, 12-13 Little
Newport Street, London WC2R 3LD.
POPULAR COMPUTING WEEKLY
AVAILABLE FROM W.H. SMITHS, BOOTS, WOOLWORTHS AND MOST COMPUTER RETAILERS OR FROM
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ta GAMESMANSHIP (Dept PCW). 6S Casslobury Ave. beier Middx TWA
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All tapes guaranteed genuine. First class delviery,
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All computers catered for
When ordering send cheque/PO to.
Bargain Software (Dept PCW2)
10 Melody Court, Stonehill Rd Estate
London W4 3AW
Ring 01-995 2763 for special offers. Pow
Micro-Computer
PUDSEY CIVIC CENTRE
(midway between Leeds and Bradford)
SATURDAY, 16th MARCH, 1985
Admission: Adulis [LO Children S0 | 10ат til Spm
VISIT THE COMPLETE SHOW FOR THE HOME USER
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Venue: Civic Hall, Dawsons Corner, Pudsey. W. Yorks!
POPULAR COMPUTING WEEKLY
Computing
in Cobol
Mr Arnold of Birmingham
writes:
Iam considering buy-
ing either the Amstrad
or BBC micro, although the
one I buy must have the
Cobol language available.
Please could you advise me
on either of these micros
and any other information
would also be appreciated.
Cobolon an Amstrad or a
BBC is in fact not avail-
able unless you spend quite а
lot on upgrading to full CP/M
and find yourself a copy of a
CIS Cobo! compiler. 1 pre-
sume that you will be using
Cobolin a course of study that
you аге about to start, and that
therefore your micro must
have this feature. I'm afraid
that the ones you have indi-
cated do not offer this lan-
guage at the moment.
Memory
mystery
T Nadel of London writes:
I wonder whether you
could help me with a
problem that I have with
the Spectrum 48K? Whilst
all the 16K programs that I
have work flawlessly and
for hours, the 48K programs
such as Cyrus is Chess,
Backgammon and Tasword
2 crash within half an hour
after starting, and some-
times less than that. The
Backgammon program for
reasons best known to itself
only loads when the com-
puter has not been used for
eme hours, whilst
Tasword will retain the text
on the screen but refuse to
comply with any
commands.
Аз I said before, the 16K
programs will work contin-
uously for hours on end. I
would be grateful for any
information that would help
me cope with this problem.
It would appear that you
have some serious prob-
lems with the Ram chip, in that
either data stored in the Ram
is being lost or is being cor-
rupted. In either case the
cure is simple, your Spec-
trum will have to be repaired
and the relevant failing com-
ponents replaced. On this
page over the last few months
I have given the addresses of
a number of companies that
will carry out repairs of this
type quite cheaply. I suggest
that you contact one of these
firms and discuss your prob-
lem with them.
Difficult
load
J. Westmacott of Worcester,
writes:
Town а Commodore 64
and appear to have a
fault on the machine which
I cannot detect. I have
played many games with
no loading problems, ex-
cept Valhalla anà Solo
Flight which only load at
about the third attempt.
‘This isn't too bad becausı
they do eventually load. Му
problem is that I have tried
1o load 2 separate tapes of
Return to Eden, the Level 9
adventure and it is just im-
possible, yet it loads OK on
a friend's machine.
As you know I have the
Novaload facility. Some-
times the game loads and I
get just a blank screen, oth-
er times I get a screen full
of C's. Please help me as
the guarantee runs ont
soon.
My only advice, and this
also applies to those of
you having loading problems
оп other makes of machine, is
to try disconnecting the com-
puter from the ТУ whilst load-
ing. This may seem a strange
piece of advice but it has
Certainly worked with some
programs on both the Spec-
trum and Spectrum +.
These programs also use
fast loaders, so whether this
has something to do with the
problem, or whether my TV
set is producing too much
static which is being transmit-
ted down the aerial lead 1
don't know. АП I can say із
that it really does work.
Fractions in
decimal
С. Dowell of Brighouse, West
Yorkshire, writes:
Сап you help with the
following problem? I
want to include a routine to
convert fractions to deci-
mals in a program I am
writing. The fractions
would be entered as either
21/64 (ie, below 1) or as 2 13/
32 (ie, between 1 and 9). I
had envisaged the latter
fractions as being entered
as 2.13/32 therefore using
the full stop to separate the
integer from the fractional
part. Can you please help
with the conversion?
The following routine
will carry out fractions to
decimal conversion... but
beware it does not include
much in the way of error
checking!
10 INPUT a$ 20 FOR i = 1 TO
LEN a$ : IF a$û TO i) = ^."
THEN LET k = i - 1 : LET i =
LEN a$ 30 NEXT i 40 LET b$
аў1 TO k) 60 LET a$
a$(k+2 TO) 10 FOR i = 1 TO
LEN a$ 80 IF a$(i TO i) = "|"
THEN LET k = i - 1 : LET i =
LEN a$ 90 NEXT i 100 LET c$
= а$(1 TO k) 110 LET d$ =
a$(k+2 ТО) 120 IF b$ = ”
THEN LET b$ + "О" 130 IF c$
= "' OR d$ = ^^ THEN GOTO
10 140 LET a =((VAL b$ ) *
(VAL 4$)) + ((VAL c$) | (VAL
d$) 150 PRINT a
Shopping
list
L Findlay of Scotland writes:
Tam l4and have hada
48K Spectrum since
last Christmas. I have now
come into some money,
and naturally want to spend
it. So please could you tell
me the following.
1) How cheaply could I geta
Sord M5 and is it worth
buying?
2) What modems come into
the under £100 price range
and are worth buying (for
the Spectrum)?
3) What, in your opinion is
the best game, Under-
worlde or Knightlore?
4) Which is the best speech
synthesiser?
A second hand MS can bet
picked up quite cheaply,
as you will no doubt have
noticed from reading the
classifieds section of PCW! As
to whether it is worth buying
it depends what you want to
use it for. Personally, I would
think that the lack of software
makes it a fairly unattracive
machine in today's market.
Your question on modems
is almost as hard to answer as
your first question. There are
а number of modems in your
price range (Maplin's own, or
the Micro Myte to name but
two), but whether they are
worth buying depends on
what you wish to communi-
cate with.
Ол to question three ...1
would choose Knightlore.
(Sorry, no explanations, 1
have no intention of starting
any arguments).
The best
synthesiser, eh?
Curragh is as good as any,
speech
. The
Many
thanks
P Robinson of Dane Road,
Bedfordshire writes
In respect to your an-
swer to Craig Lambie
November 8th issue.
There is a chess program
for the unexpanded Vic in
Innovation Computing by
Clifford Ramsman.
1 have also received a
letter from Mr R
Wallbank who has kindly of-
fered Craig an unwanted
copy of Sargon 2 cartridge.
Mr Wallbank's address is
‘Nurses Ноте Heath
Charnock Hospital, Chorley,
Lancashire РЕВ 9EH'.
7-13 MARCH 1985
CALL DIANE DAVIS ОМ 01-437 4343 FOR SEMI/DISPLAY ADVERTISING
[ee шыс ы шл ODE
DISCOUNT SOFTWARE BLANK COMPUTER CASSETTES
109 504 1005
KT
äm Moscow
васе LEE
SOMMER men
тинт 2 J-stice
STEVE. охи. SNOOKER Hi
ONE veer м
aw ню
ш т BASIC 1 woe
ALL PRICES INCLUDE POSTAGE & VAT
PLEASE SEND CO POSTAL ORDERS TO: MIC. SUPPLIES,
LONDON ROAD. HITCHIN
HERTS. 564 М
‘THERMO-NUCLEAR WAR
BY ZIRCON SOFTWARE
SPECTRUM аак ES 96
'ORAGON 32 600
Send Gute
ZIRCON SOFTWARE
2 weding Ra. Sutton, Surrey
QL PROGRESSIVE BREAKOUT 1/2
players. 100% М/С. Sand formatted car-
tridge plus £1.25. O'Neal, The Old Bak-
вгу, Lowos Road, Ringmer, East Sussex
DC
FOOTBALL POOLS. ВВС-В program
cheeks your coupon, plans and іші
perms. Dividends calculated. Cassette.
опу, £5. Popath Sohwaro, Ty-Cerbyo
Ymwich, Griccieth, Gwynedd.
LEISUREDOME
COMPUTER GAMES (Originals)
Prices from £2.50
Send SAE for details
POBOX1
BENFLEET
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SPECIAL OFFER
FOR ATARI
400/600/800 OWNERS
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We now have Aiari hardware
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Modems suitale for Atari сот-
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details send sae to:
CHARNWOOD GAMES
27 WARWICK AVENUE
QUORN, LOUGHBOROUGH
LEICESTERSHIRE
TEL: 0509 412604
THE VIC 20 LIVES!
STREET STEAM (163) Sc Text adven-
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Servon Race Across a Deadly Works
£ each or Botn lor tS
BOLTON WELLS LTD
91435 2411 я
QUALITY FLOPPY'S
fen о ==
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YO мот SOFTWARE FO BOK ST YORE
DUST COVERS. Made to measure. top
quality wipe clean fabric Printors,
drives, Keyboards £4.50, VDU's £5.50,
inci. PAP. Olive or navy. Measurements
to: Sue Smith, Dept. PC, 4 Brookside,
Disewort, Derby DÉI 2RW (0332)
10008.
ИШ DISKS DISKS
537 SIS D/D Disks
£1.60 each or £6.50 for 5
All inc. please send CH/PO
with order to
Penn. State Disks (UK) P.O.
box 20, Hatfield, Herts. AL10
SNQ. ғыз
2 COMMODORE 6a
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51" Introductory Offers
10
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ABACOM COMPUTER SUPPLIES
225 Watton Ра, Woking, Surrey GUZI SEF
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C15 £4.05 tor 10. £33 for 100 ine. p+ p
FULLY GUARANTEED
Aiso. professional quality metal эрос!
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ACCESS & VISA ORDERS BY PHONE ға)
THIS SPACE
FOR SALE
£18
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POPULAR COMPUTING WEEKLY
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CALL; P.C.W. CLASSIFIED ON 01-437 4343.
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Hare you pot problems with your
computer? Then сай us for.
Commodore, BBC,
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Mail order or call т
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135 High Street, Po
Tel 0
SINCLAIR COMPUTER REPAIRS
specum DÉI
RTE E]
ine paris p р. and reum insurance. боже
Ула pgraces tr И A prev ne
vet your computer ease pack car
SPECTRUM REPAIRS
We enperty repair Spectrum for e17
Inclusive. of paris, labour and return
Zeie
Including post.
в. A ELECTRONICS
COMPUTER REPAIRS
IN SOUTHEND
SPECTRUM, BAC, ELECTRON,
CEM 64. vic 20
MINNIE MICRO ELECTRONICS
үп Esplanade, Southend
I: 0702 62033/615809
days a We
neers having serviced Заг compulams
nce те Introduction o тө ZAAG
price в incluse a pars. labour
ien and VAT Irespecihve ol lit
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рутин £1878 Se C11 20. 10K Ram
Me You wa orcs емин.
Call or send with Cheque of P.O. e:
TY SERVICES OF CAMBRIDGE LTD,
French's Rod, Cambridge CBA INP
Sch
COMMODORE REPAIRS by Commo-
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details write or tel. G. C. Bunce & Son,
38 Burlington Road, Burnham, Bucks
SL1780. Tei: 06286 61666.
TELEX YOUR
CLASSIFIED
COPY TO:
296275
SUNYRG
CHILTERN
COMPUTER CENTRE
REPAIR SERVICE |
MT
£x E parn *
EAD Fem ronage
— waren SCC |
SPECTRUUS UPGRADED FOR 0 |
save SO ON THE REPAIRS TO YOUR сом. |
— wren vou som our REPAIR сте
WRITE OR TELEPHONE NOW FOR DETAR
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peritis
OUTER COMPUTER COTE
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—
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вас.
surance and po.
асы
parts, мш
09
‘Send your computer with cheque or PO.
or C18 S0 and aescripton ot aut lo
ЗИНЕОАТА (cw)
‘Computer Service
45 wycnwood Avenue Eageware,
Wan.
те: oy
ТИЕ COMPUTER HOSPITAL
Sick Spectrum Specialists send us
ури Poort bunt wel wrapped
fe will diagnose, cure and return
your Irend 100% t. $17 50 inclu
sive 48k upgrade £29.60 inclusive
Invicta House, Station Road,
Keyingham, Hull, HUI2 982
Tel 09644 3354 24 Hrs Ans rcv
` HEMEL COMPUTER
CENTRE LTD,
For last
Г;
| We will repair and return for
E20 + £160 php.
Also BBC, Commodore, Atari
anc Oragon servion
Hemel Computer Centre Lid.
52 High Street,
Hemel Hempstead,
Herts HPT ЗАР.
Tel: 0442 212436 — «|
Faulty Spectrum
repa your Spectra стс
ex your Spectrum for M hours,
H
€ Find йу other hen Jan
Send st with cheguei PO for £18.75 1a
Rameo Mecina, Dept S, M Матау Street,
‘Salford 7. Manchester MT 9DU
Tek 061 7922260
BUSINESS В COMPUTER SERVICES
ме аша computer consultants
‘specialising in small (and very small)
businesses. Write or phone us at 294a.
Caledonian Road, London М1 18A. Tel:
01-807 0187.
TO HIRE a computer Irom Spectrum 48K
upwards, please phone or write o: Bust-
ness 8 Computer Services, 294A Cale-
donian Road, London NT 1BA. Tel 01-
807 0157 or 01-897 6457
CAN 1 BORROW/Hire your Amstrad
Compatible printer for a few days? Also
Amstrad Manic Miner and Jewois of
Babylon for sale. Tel: Ware 88264.
039222923 02 22033 292 0392229299292 099 0 9
FAST SPECTRUM
& B.B.C. 'B' REPAIRS
FIRST COMPANY IN ALL U.K.
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SERVICE.NOW FIRST TO OFFER AN
INTERNATIONAL REPAIR SERVICE
ALL INCLUSIVE REPAIRS FROM £7.00!
© MOST SPECTRUM à BBC*8' COMPUTERS REPAIRED
IN 45 MINS.
(© WE ALIO REPAIR APPLES, MONITORS, ТАСУ, POWER SUPPLIES,
INTERFACE 1 6 MICRODRIVES
3 MONTHS GUARANTEE ON ALL REPAIRS.
© PLEASE PHONE FOR APPOINTMENT FIRST.
OR PHONE/SEND SPECTRUM/BBC FOR FREE
ESTIMATES, ENCLOSING £1.80 (U.K. 1.0.М. EIRE.
С.1) £6.50 (EUROPE/SCANDINAVIA) FOR RETURN
POSTAGE. 061-224 1888
МО HIDDEN HANDLING CHARGES.
© ALL REPAIRS TURNED ROUND IN 24 HOURS |
% EVERY MICRO INSURED FOR RETURN JOURNEY.
© NO DEALERS OR MIDDLEMEN.
YOU ARE DEALING DIRECTLY WITH А
TEAM OF PROFESSIONAL ENGINEERS
910 MINS FROM MANCHESTER OR
STOCKPORT CENTRES
© OPEN SEVEN DAYS A WEEK
TILL 7 Р.М. (MON-SAT)
1 һауе come across a lim that willbe more than willing to advise you as
lo howtoremedy your problem They are called MANCOMP and us weil
эз repairing faulty Spectrums are also quite willing là discuss your
там you ang ofer resonaby enean and tore import)
Correct cures. PHIL ROGERS ‘PEEK & РОКЕ
"POPULAR COMPUTING WEEKLY” JAN. 1985(VOL IV NO 1)
MANCOMP LTD. (ерт. PCW)
EEE EE EEE EEE MEMES
(“> Printworks Lane, Manchester, M19 3JP.
FAST COMPUTER REPAIRS
eo
UE,
HARDWARE & SOFTWARE ON A CONSULTANCY BASIS It
QM 061-224 1888
ЧЕ ш EEE
Ss
mm
الا I
== ош
= VIDEO VAULT INTERNATIONAL =
10% REPAIR SERVICER
Spectrumerepaivedtor €19.95 Ine. Parts Insurance and P& PNoHidden Extras.
BBC: Commodore 64. Vie 20. Are. Quoted for
Ми you ed up with bling weeks lor your Ноты Computer to be
Узи тубе Eapana, we her a М repair ence on any Но
Айтеранъ carry a il 3 mon guarantee, plu on every Spe
At ye any a GN S i peer uron ens SE
fonder turned around in 24 hrs.
‘within 45 minutes,
Teturn journey.
a:
H
H — avai
ü X Free software with sach Spectrum repaired worth £5.95.
X. Over 8 years experience working with computers.
ONLY GENUINE SINCLAIR PARTS USED.
Е.
КЕНЕ LOM C1) or £6 50 (Europe Scandinavia) we wil contact you he.
Same day by hon lan Mal id ve a [7
TRADEEQUIRIESMOSTWELCOME ` ACCESSWELCOMED E
IDEOVAULTINTERNATIONALLTD (DEPTRI1) THE LOGICAL CHOICI
Telephone: Glossop (STD 04574) 66555.
140 High St West Glossop, Derbyshire. England
7-13 MARCH 1985
WDSoftware
‘le РШ сагызы QUEL.
WD Utilities for CST Discs
100 le capa, br CST Compas dire spem WITH a mcr
WD Morse Tutor
SpecScanen ш er Sperm, btn speech rry wp Cura}
Ref QL (Ist ed)
Toy ad де), „сте
For the 48K Spectrum
WD Morse Tutor (base
Tor etch besser beyen YA i Arar Pato reer. Ааа pach St peed той
— Lega —
term spac coral We ses жын you but. en CHECK n Sees oF
Se ows mee Tan
ES
Tradewind
Бр gta wi ро жиры
Jersey Quest
Ei ec ОЧА
Prices
орел МИН “EL cartridge plus bue price
Tis" noppies 2 plus base (SPDOS for Spectrom)
Teor ae prograna жш и EE ———
ОШ os ar merum pos on que elm Soe! CUR UU e td B o өрім
far incre
WDSoftware, Hilltop, St Mary, Jersey Tel: (0534) 81392
2 PROFESSIONAL IO COLIN DISPLAY.
* COLOURS N & COLUMN MODE
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mr FLOPPY DISKS OR тие эмтир.
ASH BYPRODU! [r SE
KC Price nc PAP, —
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Bucci ae mary mre rem aca we ay EUROPEAN SUPER LEAGUE
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MICRODRIVE FASTLOAD. An auto-run
utility lor microdrivo users. Lists ай files
ridge. Single key selection to
down-load filo, give details of filo size!
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AMSTRAD ASSEMBLER
MAXAM
COMPLETE WITH: DISASSEMBLER AND FULL SCREEN EDITOR
(Ву the author of Boebug's EXMON }
OUTSTANDING FEATURES INCLUDE.
з ТЕТУ МОО ВАЫСМАСНАЕ CODE — өй тен ar еи dien
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Р.О. Box 123,
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2833688
28585888]
IMPROVE your AJeve| examination
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revision program written by former uni
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J. A. Hughes,
%, Merseyside
SUPER FAST xware
COUCHE STRUCTION MANUAL
AMSTRAD OWNERS!
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Send cheque/PO for £2.80 to
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AMSTRAD USERS
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Fora full range ot
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WHITSTABLE, KENT CTS 114
INTRODUCTION 10 trigonometry. Eight
programs on one cassette for any Spec-
trum £2.50. Written by College Lecturer.
D. A. Clarke, 37 Arundel Close, New
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EDUCATIONAL SOFTWARE. Most home.
‘computers. For your free 24-page bro-
chure, send to Jander Software,
Edgbaston House, Broad Street,
Birmingham.
FOR SALE
BBC 'B' 1.2 0/5 plus software, £285 ono.
Tot: 061-973 1294,
QL only used once, hence reason for
sale. Bored, with prinlor cable, £275
оло. Tel: Malvern (06845) 61641. (Егіс,
evenings).
AMSTRAD COMPUTER WITH colour
monitor, Joystick, and £100 worth ої
software, Worth £450 brand new, only
£270. Tol: Beaconsfield 71340.
ATARI 800 + cass + books + mags +
£200 of s/w £170 or swap CBME4, buyer.
must collect. Write with phone по to
Steve Sanger, 30 Station Ave, Wickford,
Essex 8811 788.
ATARI 800 48k plus cassette with basic
and Esforth, just serviced and In good
‘condition, £120 ono. Tel: 03224 35883,
ask for Roy.
‘AMSTRAD 464
Kegel
Dr Ms а SYED эм Тамар oor Own
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ышы" NR
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ASTROLOGY
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Cassette £9.95 inc р+р. or
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AMSTRAD TAPE UTILITY
‘Tek (0227) 266289
TAPE TO DISC UTILITY ТОЛО he ранее наны. | Û ы E arer ai yeun көр ung tre ер
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58 POPULAR COMPUTING WEEKLY
RECRUITMENT
EXCITING NEW PROJECT
MIRO GEN
require further staff to assist in the development and program-
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If you believe that your efforts can match the standards set by
PYJAMARAMA/EVERYONE'S A WALLY etc and would enjoy
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apply in writing or phone;
Mr A. Lawrie (Technical Director)
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23a Station Road
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Tel: (07842) 48150 -
PROGRAMMERS
ASSEMBLER PROGRAMMERS SOFTWARE REQUIRED
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or telephone for further
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WANTED DEALERS
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palng ana Dragonder. Со | ga ete St Andrews, Fie Күле (TRADE ENOS WELCOME) кай
7-13 МАВСН 1985 59
Book
your
Classified
or
Semi-display
advert by
Credit
Card
Call
Diane
Davis
on
01-437 4343
CASSETTE RECORDERS AT TRADE PRICE
Computer compatible recorders with DIN and Jack Sockets, Tape
counter, handle and FREE tape head cleaning kit. Battery or mains
operation with leads supplied. Boxed and Guaranteed for 12 months.
ONLY EIFS he VAT and CASO postage ала tance. Immediate Despatch Promised Trade
Challenge Research Ltd., 218 High St, Potters Bar, Негіз.
Tel: (0707) 44063
—
Te ciim
Е FLASHING SQUARE INTERFACE
— — —
owe att rer CO O, талат ее тети ET ақ
EE
Moy ri eet D —
MAGENTA ELECTRONICS LTD.
Oa mr Br тта Ss 257
Ko
QL SOFTWARE
DATA MANAGEMENT
Leading the way with Q.L. are at:
12 LARCH WAY, HAXBY, YORK YO3 BRU
Tel: 0904 760351 nx
OL
BANK ACCOUNT
Wy Go Over
Ты £8-00
EO
—— Ss 730,
HIGH-SPEED CASSETTE
DUPLICATION
LOGICOPY
GOLDSTAR HOUSE
198/200 QUEENSWOOD DRIVE,
LEEDS 156 3ND
Tel for details: 0532 788758
DATA DUPLICATION
and
BLANK CASSETTES
M.G. COPIES
чо 0809 252831
—
точити ы Зм —
DRAGON USER
teed. Dragon Uer т» карен
magazine 'or Dragon owners. To make
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е! regular
years subac
overseas тама available on applica
Send a cheque or postal order mad
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COURSES
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ZE ы
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Software/Hardware, Weckend/Woeks.
For further details contact: Jaysott Micro
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LEARN TO USE
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AT
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SOFTWARE
CM CORE
£9.95
SIMTRON
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ог Two to меу using
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Only £385 Inclusive via fast mai) order
eech
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USE VIX 8000 on Bullotin boards!
'Specnet* program 55.95. "Spectorm
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phen Adams, 1 Leswin Road, London
INL. Tol: 01-254 1880.
Computer Swap
01-437 4343
Free readers entries to buy or
sell a computer.
Ring 01-437 4343 and give us
the details,
UNWANTED SAGA keyboard, £43, Те!
Andy, after Bp, 04862 85978.
TRSB0, sound box, Monitor, tape record-
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ovos
SEKOSHIA GP100A printer, 4 months
old, with Centronics interface. Tal: 01-
580 1018, ask for Room 504
COMPUTER CONTROLLABLE KEY-
BOARD, Casio MT200 with РА! Inter-
face, £110 ono. Korg MS-10 mini synth
with Patel leads £95 опо, Mattel
Synsonics electronic drums 646 ono.
Tel: Southend (0702) 347580 widays or
wiends, ater 7pm. Day (01) 437 4343, ext.
d B06
QL PLUS EPSON FX80 printer complete
with #8232 interface, both hardly used,
£750, Tel: 01-677 8242.
VTX 5000 Modem with all instructions
and Prestel application forms in excel-
i condition with Proste) directory
Bargain at £60 опо. Tel: 07404 289 and
ask for Garry
LYNX SOFTWARE for sale: Deathball
Monster Mine, Smashoul, Racer, Pro:
tector. £10 the lot. Dustcover £2. Seria
imertace ЕЗ Phone 0422 75366.
FTWARE - Blagger, Foot-
Pyjamarama, Return to
Eden, Chess, Bridge, Test Match, Easi-
Amsword, Codename Mat D each
Also Davpac £12 Phone 0422 76388.
evenings/weekends. Originals only.
POPULAR COMPUTING WEEKLY
11-7075 termiprinter with keyboard,
120 column. £50, Tel: мог 654445 evens.
JOY BALL Rollerball controller, brand
mew. Suitable СВМ or Atari. £30 оло,
Tel: (0924) 853802 evens.
Т1904А cassette leads, books,
games. £60 o.n.o. Tel: 051-546 0334
QL VM ` Rom & west adventure game.
£340 or will swap for CERS) + disc and
tape. Те! Farningham 863428 after 6.30.
MICRODRIVE 8 оао | 8
microdrives, cartridge, £150 o n.o Atari
disc siw For details Tol: 01-571 2870.
SEKNOSHIMA 550 A PRINTER. Brand
new, sil in box, complete with manuals,
ВВС cable, Reason for sale, no use for
‘Bargain £200, Tel: Paul 0658 55839.
TIMEGATE GROUND ATTACK. Origi
nals only, Те! (0224) 491195.
TIS9/4A ADVENTURE TAPES - new
5350 each plus carriage Wanted
TIO0ER magazines and any hardware
for T193/4A. Thorpe, 32 Glenshesk Park,
Dunmurry, Belfast BTI7 SBA. Tel: 0232
623001
МЕМОТЕСН 512 + Ram word proces-
sor, £200 ono. Tel: Sheffield 302050.
KAYPRO 2 84K iwin disk drives 200k
(nach) builtin monitor, MTBO printer +
Wordstar Perfoct Eier P. Calo, Р Writ
өг, Spellor, M. Basic, СРМ + all man-
uals, litle used, cost £1,750, £750 опо
Tol: 0034 416471
HEWLETT PACKARD 416 pocket com
puter, 82143A poriphoral printer. memo-
ту module, carry case, peper. very com-
pact. Cost over #650, swap GBME4 and
accessories or offers, Tel: 041 554 8116,
after Spm.
FOR SALE Oric 1 46K + tape recorder
only 4 months old. Cost ovor £100, soll
tor only £50, Must seii quickly, excellent
working order. Tel: Worcester 820.060.
Beginners’ dream"
SHARP PCISO0 pocket computer with
got
Basic and machine code (a truly gr
computor), Tel: 031 442 4187.
AMSTRAD CPC4B4 (colour version) for
‘sala, includes Comp Pro joystick 5000
and s/w Including Hunchback and Co.
Tossal Adventure, £300. Tel: 0342 834706
(Surrey)
SINCLAIR QL, as new. with games.
sprite designer, machine code tutor
only £320 ono. Tel: 0325 312417 after
арт,
AMSTRAD CPCABS colour monitor, por-
fect condition, stili in box, £275 Тег 01
856 9871 (SE Londo!
ELECTRONIC KEYBOARD Casio. un
wanted gitt, excellant condition, com-
plete with manuals, C15 lor quick sale
Contact Јов, 061-881 4496.
OL COMPUTER, JM Rom. perfect condi-
Чоп + Assembly language book, £350
Tol. West Mailing (0732) 841638.
ALPHACOM 32 printer in exchange for
DK Tronics Keyboard or similar or will
sell for £35. Tel: 01-850 5498
TIBIA, extended basic, joystick, Music
Maker, TI Invaders, Lionel & The Lac
ders, 2 program books, or mags + TI
mags, £80, Tel: 0229 38737.
AMSTRAD CP464 colour computer +
games, £280. Tel: 0702 334585.
ORIC 48K + E100 ol sw + 650 of books
+ Aquarius computer, £180 ono, Sei
separately. Write to: Gary Mousin. 21
Levers Drive, Breightment, Bolton BL2
ЕЗ!
FOR SALE Sharp М280А with £150
worth of software, builtin monitor and
cassette. £180. Tel: 01-959 3788 after
Spm on woekdays.
SEIKOSHA GPTOOA 7 colour printer
Centronics intarfaco, hardly usod, spare
cartridge, Kempston Centronics inter.
Tasword 2, light pen, general file
mailing list, (Spectrum), £350 оло. Will
split. Tol 0376 48236.
AMSTRAD CPC464 and colour monitor
plus 4 original cassettes, also one issue
‘at Computing With The Amstrad, full
working order. good condition, bargain
only £330. Те! Halesworth 2689.
RISM УТХ5000 Modem. Telecom ар.
proved for use with any Sinclair Spec
rum. In excellent condition with ail
manuals, £55 ono. Tol: 0793 611525
COMPUTER MAGS for sale, inc POW.
Contact 0908 643215
TRS 80 colour computer 64K extended
basic, CC12-81, cassette recorder, Elec
tron Books, Professor Press notes pro.
gram. leads, manual, 30k and brand
new, only £200. Tel: Brent Wood (0277)
211909, after брт.
SINCLAIR OL complete with tour master
programs, 4 cartridges 8 RS323 lead.
User Guide OL Club Information, un-
used, £325 for quick sala, Tel: (0832)
247452
SINCLAIR OL, four months old, £325.
Tel: St Helens (0744) 51797, alter брт,
Johnathan.
DISC DRIVE Dua! 40T Cannon (4006) in
office caso ` with PSU, leads. software
tor BBC Micro, £200. Tel: 01-841 0505.
CASIO РВ700 portable computer. 48K.
unused, 1985 model - brought two from
Japan, hence sale. £130 ono complete
(82005 in shops). Also ZX printer £15,
Casio FA-1 (502/602) + ҒА-2 (702P) £10
Toi 627 S499.
Spectrums for Sale
‘SPECTRUM original games. Crazy save:
Monty Mole, Daley s Decathlon. Knight
Lore, Ad Asira, Factory Breakout, Potty.
Pigeon, Underwuride, Beach Head. Cy-
clone, Star Bike. Tir Na Nog, 4 тоге!
Huge clearovt. Tel: Richard, 01.699
Ka
SPECTRUM software including Psytron,
Sabre Wulf, Tir Na Nog. ОИ! 4 50 each
Many moro hall price or less, all origi
nals, mint condition. W. Kusnier, 55
Wilmer House, Daling Way. London ЕЗ
iN
SPECTRUM Dous ex machina-unused,
only £12.50. Tel: Andy on 0532 657038,
after 4pm (Price includes РЕР)
ASK SPECTRUM, Fuller keyboard,
Kempson Interface, Quickshot joystick,
Curran micro speech, loads c! sofware.
Joystick extension lead. А! for only £200
оло Phone St Helens 815128 now and
ask tor Mark
SPECTRUM MAPLIN KEYBOARD. As
sembled 8 working. inc. adaptor. See
Мар catalogues for tuli details £18 or
best offer, + original software. Pie
call lor details Tel (0620) 734078
(Mates)
SPECTRUM 48K interface joystick, cas-
sette recorder, over £100 worth of sw
Only £200 оло. Tel: Alex 01-242 449
ек 5208, 3€ MIF
ASK SPECTRUM Interface & micrearive
Sekoshia GP 100 A printer & other
accessories. Value £700. Sell £350 or
Swap for Apple & monitor & disc drive
eme 42849 (evens)
ZX SPECTRUM 48K excellent condition
£75, Tet 01249 8665 ator 5 30pm.
SPECTRUM games. originais. Hobbi
Valhalla £7. Рвутоп £5, Абс Аас, Kong,
Pengy. Planetoids, Alchemist, TransAm,
Zoom Traxx, Maziacs, Scuba. Dive, Jack
and the Beanstalk, Horace, Mined-Out
Orbiter Quest, £2 50. Tel: бізден (041)
B81 681
Commodores for Sale
CBM M S/W 1150 Suc
Beach Head, Mystic Mansion, Jack &
Beanstalk. Time Machine, Forbidden
Forest. £300 Fab, Wanda. Megawart.
Bumping Buggies, £2 00 Manic Minor
Ring of Power. Tel. 01-301 5177.
СВМ 64 sofware package by Gemini
Cash books + VAT program on disc
Offers. Tel: 1-366 7115.
МС 20 f40 опо Та!
CBM 64 £140 + 8 то
condition, leads & manual
after 01-749 6629.
СВМ 1841 disc drive for sa
01-827 0967 (evens).
СВМ 64 largo soloction of well known
original games £4 each or buy four
games and get one treo! Te. 01-458
2995 ater арт
СВМ VIC 20, 16K switchable pack, cas
see unit, lots of s/w. 2 cartridges,
Quickshot joystick. C150 Tel.
Tyneside 410 6237 after 4pm.
СВМ VIC 20, C2N TIR, 18 Ker
ol s/w, Rat Race cannóge =
£150, Tel; St Albans 57525.
COMMODORE 64 computor. one month
Gió. Guaranteed. 25 games including
Ghostbusters, Docathion, Eureka, Spy
Ув Spy, Pole Position, Buck Rogers etc
new £450, зей £275 with cassette ro-
corder and joystick. Те: 450 0794.
heflield 894457
"s old, good
Ring: Син
£190. Tel
ys. £100
mags.
FUZED
DEFUZED
CONFUZED
ADVENTURE
‘Message from Andromeda on CPC
464. 1 can't get past the panel in the
mirrored room at the beginning of the
adventure. Stephen Hall, 10 Closofield
Grove, Whitley Bay, Tyne and Wear
МЕ25 6ST.
Kentilla on Spectrum. How do you
use the furnace and open the chest in
the bedroom? Robert Wands, 80 Теп-
nyson Drive, Tellcross, Glasgow.
Forest at Worlds End on CPC 484.
How do 1 get into the witch's hobel
without being killed by the magic
powder and witch? Jamie Gardiner, 8
Queendown Avenue, Rainham, Kent.
0634 387834.
Message from Andromeda on CPC
464. What do | do in the blue and
mirrored rooms? Terry Harington, 19
Chinchilla Rd, Southchurch, Southend-
on-Sea, Essex.
Castle of Terror on C64. How do you
light the glass lantern? I have the flint
and bone, Gordon Wade, 31 Linton
Rise, Catterick Garrison, North Yorks
DLS 4DN.
The Hobbit on Spectrum, 1 can't get
past the trolls. О. S. Anderson, April
Cottage, Chafford Lane, Fordcombe,
Tunbridge Wells, Kent
‘The Hobbit on Spectrum. l'm stuck in
the goblin's dungeon, and I can't get
past the eyes in the forest. Dawn
Larman, 22 Baley Cres. Congleton,
Cheshire. 0280 278138.
Message from Andromeda on СРС
464. How can 1 get past the pane! with
he square plate in the mirror тоот?
What do I do at the pedestal? Robert
Stanley, 15 Harradon Rd, Wallon, Liv-
'erpool L9 OHE.
Message from Andromeda on СРС
464. What can 1 do with the pedestal,
with the dish, or with the panel with
tho plate to get past this stage? Nicho-
las O'Loghlen, 6 Barn Hill, Stanley. Co
Durham DH9 SAN.
Empire of the Overmind on Atari.
How do I got the sword from the
dwarf? H. T. Walker, 7 Burnet Avenue,
Burpham, Guildford, Surrey.
The Hobbit on Spectrum. Any an-
awers to Collum'w riddles? Any use
for the golden key? John Anderson, 59
Rd, File,
Diamond on CPC 464, How
do you got past the river and open the
manhole? Andrew Lane, 3 Philip
Drive, Flackwell Heath, Bucks HPlO
Sm
Twin Kingdom Valley on Commo-
dore 64. Where do | find the lost
deser! kings treasure chest and how
do i get the masters key without being
killed by the dragon? Vincent Rais, 42
Bambamossa Street, 2033 Gm Haar-
em, Holland.
Computer Swap entries are limited
to 30 words. Either fill in the ac-
companying form and send to
Computer Swap. Popular Compur-
ing Weekly, 12-13 Little Newport
Street, London WC2H 7PP or tele-
phone 01-437 4343.
АП software offered through com-
puter swap must be in original
condition and for private sale only
IL cannot be swapped.
Warning: It is illegal to advertise
pirated software.
COMPUTER SWAP
Please write your copy in capital letters on the lines below.
COMPUTER SWAP
|
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7-13 MARCH 1985
(ісе
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(Compiled by Websters Software]
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Fantasia Diamond
‘(Compiled by Websters Sotware)
Doses зем eer Organisers
Second 6303 Сонгон маг 031 — — ped
nie — ZS SE
Tendon SW
* Apel 1628 Bale Vos Free in advance Reed rte
Compete Sow De Ze NEE Ze
Applets May 5.10 * Free in advance Database Publications
10 Dou en Gm pepe [xr
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DU 4 opa
Becta & BBC Mere May
New Horicultora Halis Database Publications
Tendon SW [Xr
Readers’ Chart No 14
1 (1) Ghostbusters (Spectrum| C64) Activision
2 (2) Knight Lore (Spectrum) Ultimate
3 (-) Football Manager (Spectrum| C64| ВВС] Electron] Огіс|
Atmos|Dragon| Vic 20|ZX81) Addictive Games
4 (4) Manic Miner (Spectrum| С64| Amstrad| MSX|
Dragon) Software Projects
5 (3) Underwurlde (Spectrum) Ultimate
6 (9) Pyjamarama (Spectrum| C64| Amstrad) Mikro-Gen
1 (5) Match Day (Spectrum| C64) Ocean
8 (8) Daley Thompson's Decathlon (Spectrum| C64) Ocean
9 (=) Spy vs Spy (C64) Beyond
10 (-) Chiller (Spectrum| C64) Mastertronic
Winning phrase No 14: "The good win, the dull rust" from Martin McClelland, Warwick Road,
Knowle, Solihull, W Midlands, who receives £25.
Now voting on week 16 - £25 to win
Each week Popular is compiling its own special software top ten chart —
compiled by YOU.
And each week we will send £25 to the person who sends in, with their chart
votes, the most original (witty, neat or clever – but never rude) phrase ог
sentence made upfrom the letters (you don'thaveto use them all) in the titles
of the top three programs in this week's chart, published above.
You can still vote in the chart without making up a slogan — but you won't
be in with a chance of winning the prize.
All you have to do is fill in the form below (or copy it out if you don't want
to damage your magazine) and send it off to: Top 10, Popular Computing
Weekly, 12-13 Little Newport Street, London WC2H 7PP.
Voting for Week 15 closes at 2pm on Wednesday March 13 1985. Entries received after that
time will not be eligible for inclusion in that week's voting. The judges decision is final. Only
one entry per individual per week will be allowed.
Му top 3: Voting Week 16
1
POPULAR COMPUTING WEEKLY
SO RIGHT
Given the difference in pow-
er, though not, any more, in
price, between the Plus 4 and
the C16 it's rather unfortu-
nate, from a Plus 4 owner's
point of view, that what pro-
grams there are tend to be
packaged together as C16/
Plus4 titles, This means, quite
simply, that half the power of
the later machine is com-
pletely redundant.
Jack Attack is а conversion
ofa Vic(!) title that did well in
America and it comes on car-
tridge for the two machines
from Commodore them-
selves. Graphically, it doesn't
look anything like the current
level of 64 offerings - much
closer to the Vic, methinks.
‘The game is one of those
rareties where something
about the basic idea is so
right that other factors like
simple graphics can be ig-
nored. The idea here is that
you stomp on or crush bal-
loons. The balloons bounce
about the screen in the way
you'd expect balloons to
behave.
You are a spacehopper-
like animal, jump on top of the
balloons to burst them — don't
let them land on you. The
other element to the game is a
distributed on each of the lev-
els, which may be used to
trap and crush balloons - get
all the balloons on each
screen and you go on to the
next one. However it sounds,
itis, in fact, very addictive. Га
like to be nice about a pro-
gram for the new machines,
but there's one major prob-
lem apart from the technical
dullness: it costs 214.981
Program Jack Attack
Price 414.95
Micro Commodore 64
Supplier Commodore
1 Hunters Road
Weldon North
Industrial Estate.
Weldon
Corby
NNI7 10X
— —
VOLCANIC
Nemesis, whose Arnold
Blackwood adventures have
acquired something of a cult
following, have launched an-
other adventure in the series
titled Angelique. It offers the
near unique opportunity to
play an adventure from the
perspective of gasp, more
outlandish than trolls and
elves... a woman.
As Angelique, your task is
to survive trials and tribula-
tions and meet up with Arnold
with whom you have, well
Something or ofher anyway.
The authors claim that the fact
that you are female means
more in this game than mere-
ly your name - it is germane
to the solution of many of the
problems.
In practice - as far as I got
anyway - this tends to mean
that a fairly shallow male view
of women's emotions, re-
vades. Angelique is dressed
іп black leather skirt, black
stockings, silk blouse, etc,
like a caricature of a French
resistance woman - she is
also much given to coyness.
However, there is much to
recommend about the adven-
ture; after all, the fact that
Angelique comes over with
any personality at all even if it
is a stereotype is a step up
from the usual adventure.
Similarly, the solution to many
of the problems is deliciously
ludicrous - the very first
problem of how to get out of
the volcano being a case in
point.
The screen layout is a les-
son to others as ever proving
that text adventures don't
have to look dull, so I recom-
mend ithighly. But if you are a
woman you may find that you
have to grit your teeth a lot.
Program Angelique
Price 4650
Micro Amstrad
Supplier Nemesis
10 Carlow Road
Ringstead
Kettering
Northants
NNI4 4DW
Ба
DISARMINGLY DAFT
English Software's latest re-
lease for the BBC and the
Electron is а malti-screen ar-
cade game called Kissing
Kousins which has the enor-
mous virtue oí costing £4.98.
Aside from the price
there's something about the
game that tends to disarm
criticism. It's totally silly, fea-
tures daft bouncing animals
and more or less totally con-
sists of jumping over various
Ithas a some kind of beserk
charm and actually the graph-
ics are very nicely designed,
Not a mega game, however.
Kissing Kousins
Price £4.95
Micro BBC
Supplier English Software
1 North Parade
Parsonage
Gardens
Manchester
M60 1ВХ
— — —
CHEERS
World Cup Football on the
Spectrum was the first at-
tempt to do anything like
Commodore's International
Soccer on the machine and
clocked up thousands of sales
for that reason alone.
For obvious reasons Artic
have converted the game to
the Amstrad which doesn't
have colour-res problems
and has a sound chip that can
make quite a decent crowd-
cheering noise.
The Amstrad World Cup
Football is definitely а better
program than the Spectrum
one but there are some curi-
овійев - for one thing the
scrolling is a bit ropey, get-
series of blocks, differently sponses and interests per- differently shaped obstacles. ting a definite case of the
Program Type Micro Price Supplier Velnor's Lair Ad Commodore 64 £2.99 Atlantis
Heroes ol Кат Ad — Amstrad £6.00 Interceptor Combat Lynx Arc Electron £8.95 Оше!
Morris meets Bikers Arc Amstrad $798 Automata 10 Great Games Arc Spectrum £7.50 infinite
World Cup Football Arc Amstrad $795 Artic Cavern Attack Arc Spectrum £3.95 50 Software
Emerald іше Ad BBC £6.95 Levels El Dorado Arc Spectrum £1.99 Atlantis
‘Combat Lynx Are BBC £8.95 Durell Electro ele Arc Spectrum £3.95 50 Software.
Kissin Kousins. Ас BBC $495 English Paintcraze etc Arc — Spectrum £3.95 SD Software
Mansion Adventure Ad C16 £3.99 Microdeal Бей Destruct Arc Spectrum £299 Atlantis
Williamsburg Adv Ad СЮ 5399 Microdeal Thermo Nuciear War Arc Spectrum £5.95 Zircon
Arena 3000 Ас C16 5499 Microdeal WashnSloshete Ас Spectrum £3.95 50 Software
Cuthbert + Tombs Ас C16 £5.95 Microdeal Weed Attack Arc Spectrum £3.95 50 Software
Shades Ad ` Commodore 64 £8.95 Durell Nicotine Nightmare Arc — Spectrum £2.99 Atlantis
7-13 MARCH 1985 өз
shudders sometimes and the
animation of the figures is
only fair.
Still it does let you play
football passing the ball from
player to player, swerving,
dribbling and all that. Since it
has no rivals on the 464 at the
moment I don't really see how
it can fail, Brian.
Program World Cup
Football
Price £795
Micro Amstrad
Supplier Artic Computing
Main Street
Brandesburton
Driffield
ҮО25 8RL
— —
BUG BLASTER
Hypercircuit is the Alligata
latest and although only a
blast-em-up, it has a few re-
deeming features such that
it's worth a cautious recom-
mendation. The idea is that
you are patrolling ће pcb of
your computer moving along
the connecting lines of solder
- your task із to blast abso-
lutely everything that comes
your way in terms of bugs
and, as a side issue, find your
way around the grid which
frequently leads to dead
Simple as the idea is, the
actual programming is very
professional with very
smooth scrolling of the (intri-
cately designed) circuit
board and excellent sound
effects. Later levels really
only involve a change of
nasties and of colours, so
could be it'd get a litle te-
dious after a while, but ad-
dicts of the pure blast could
well enjoy it.
Program Hypercircuit
Price 4795
Micro Commodore 64
Supplier Alligata Software
1 Orange Street
pu S : Ó-^"Ái's |üA
TROPICAL
Until recently whenever one
of the major adventure
houses produced an adven-
ture intended to run on sever-
al machines and featuring
graphics you could always be
certain that that mighty media
star, the BBC B ("take for ex-
ample this ordinary home mi-
cro") would be left out. Not
enough memory was the cry.
But that's all changed with
the latest adventure from
Level 9. Nor does the adven-
ture itself seem to be any the
less involved ог sophis-
ticated.
Emerald Isle plonks you
into a ‘tropical island para-
dise' where your plane has
crashed and you have bailed
out, your parachute catching
the trees as you fall. The first
locations, needless to say,
feature a maze of trees.
Тһе great thing about Em-
erald Isle is the way it gets
going almost immediately.
There are items, problems
and clues from the beginning
and a couple of nice (ie, rela-
tively easy to solve but diffi-
cult enough to give you that
glow of satisfaction when
Sorted out) problems to fath-
om out. What does the seam-
stress want? Did you remem-
ber to collect it?
Gradually it starts to get
fiendish, who or what is the
mysterious "W' and can you
Take or Get it? The answers
to these and other questions
are likely to fill the pages of
Adventure Corner in the
months to come. I may write
in myself.
Program Emerald Isle
Price 4655
Micro ВВС
Supplier Level 9
229 Hughenden
Road
High Wycombe
Bucks
НРІЗ SPG
— —
ARMS TALKS
This is an unusual program —
Worldwise is an educational
program for the Spectrum
that aims to teach about the
current state of nuclear weap-
on distribution. As as sideline
it shows a map of the world,
individual countries of which
may be displayed, contains
details of the nature and num-
bers of weapons systems in
each country, provides the
basis for a game of nuclear
disarmament and will draw
land masses at different de-
grees of magnification.
All the above is accessed
via а series of menus based
around a database of country
shapes - which can simply Бе
used as an atlas - and a
database of weapons
information.
The game works by two
players taking charge of the
existing weapons balance be-
tween east and west and ne-
gotiating to drop weapons
from the list in return for the
other side dropping other
weapons from their list at a
given postion. It's a game for
teams in the classroom, but I
wish Га been able to play
such things at school.
Ап excellent package that
won't be in the shops, but I
found fascinating.
WORLDWISE:
NUCLEAR
WEAPONS
Program Worldwise
Price — £6.00
Micro Spectrum
Supplier Richardson
Institute for
Conflict and Peace
Research
Department of
Politics
University of
Lancaster
Lancaster LA] 4YF
Worldwise Ed Spectrum Richardson
Racehorse Trainer S Spectrum 50 Software
Starboard S Spectrum Infinite
Character Sets Ut Spectrum Infinite
Interactive Bec Pro Ut Spectrum Eugeb
MSMM. Ut Spectrum Infinite
Mcode sound library Ut ^ Spectrum Infinite
Supafile 150. Ut Spectrum Infinite.
Death Race Arc Мс20 Antlantis
Super Break Out Ас Мс20
Key: Ad- adventure.
Arc - arcade. Ut- Utility
Ed — education.
£1.99 Atlantis
S- strategy-simulation.
POPULAR COMPUTING WEEKLY
— — —
DREAMY
Know your own PSI-Q is the
claim on the box of
Mirrorsoft's latest seltim-
provement offering. Do you
have Psychic Powers? it asks.
1 am one of those people,
seemingly rare, who never
has dreams 1 can even com-
prehend, let alone deduce
the winner of the Derby from.
Similarly, 1 have never felt
eerie forebodings of future
disasters nor do I have much
luck at dice.
Know your own PSE O helps
to sort the psychic wunder-
Kinds from the intuitionless
clods who don't even know
what happened yesterday,
never mind next week.
There are two elements to
the program, tests and result
analysis. The tests come in
Various types, guessing
cards, guessing colours, Psi
sub - a sort of clairvoyant
battleships and so on. You get
your results calculated for
each one and a couple of
extras - a relaxation section
where bleeps are matched lo
your heartbeat and an open-
ing screen where you are
asked a series of questions to
determine your psychic men-
tality, eg, sceptic, enthusiast,
etc.
If you're interested in this
subject, then this is neatly
programmed and quite thor-
ough and removes all the te-
dious maths involved in as-
sessing the results properly.
If you're not interested, then
you probably won't have got
as far as this sentence.
Program Know your own
Psi-Q
Price — £9.95
Micro Spectrum
Supplier Mirror Group
Dunlace House
4 Canfield Garden
London NW6 3QT
MN Wa
AMSTRAD. e
GREAT GRAPHICS
This must be the third time
Heroes of Karn has appeared
in these pages and for that
теавоп ГЇЇ keep this one short.
The reason for this program
turning up yet again is the fact
that not only does it featu:
awesome graphics by the i
creasingly legendary Terry
Greer, but being on the
Amstrad it features awesome
Terry Greer | Amstrad
graphics.
So, aside from a good ad-
venture with the usual mystic,
dark lords of tharg stuff, you
get location illustrations that
look like they were done with
an air brush and outclass al-
most everything else graphi-
cally, with the possible ex-
ceptions of Alien 8and Knight
Lore.
If you want a good adven-
ture with graphics to make
friends who own other micros
gnash their teeth with envy -
buy it. It's cheap too.
Program Heroes of Karn
Price 6.00
Micro Amstrad
Supplier Interceptor Micros
Lindon House
The Green
Tadley
Hampshire
GOING PLACES
Avalon was one of the most
inventive adventure games of
last year, mixing distinctive
3D graphics and a number of
unique features in terms of
the way you interact with the
program. Although only joy-
stick commands were really
necessary, a large variety of
different possibilities were
created within the game by
the use of a scrolling options
chart and the ingenious na-
ture of the problems.
The sequel is called
Dragontorc and whilst it has
all the same features that
made Avalon the distinctive
game it was, there are plenty
more things to do, more crea-
tures to meet and, perhaps
best of all, more and more
varied locations.
Where Avalon was set
largely in a world of caves
and tunnels, Dragontorc fea-
tures woods, stone circles,
caverns and buildings. The
characters, like all characters
in computer games these
days, have some sort of artifi-
cial intelligence such that
their behaviour depends to a
large extent on what your
character, Maroc, does to
them. This has been called
many things by many differ-
ent companies, but Hewson
call it Sensory Animation
which is as good a phrase as
any.
There are 250 different ar-
eas to explore and, knowing
that journalists are usually too
incompetent to thoroughly in-
vestigate a complex game,
Hewson included a hint sheet
which revealed the richness
and complexity of even the
initial screens. — Solving
Dragontorcis going to need a
lot of work,
Program Dragontorc
Price 47,98
Micro Spectrum
Supplier Hewson
Milton Trad. Est.
Milton
Abingdon
Oxon OX14 4RX
i —
BASIC TRAINING
‘This is something interesting.
An educational program
"which shows real inventive-
ness - better still it teaches
Sinclair Basic.
Interactive Basic Program-
ming is а tape of more than
200К of text and programs
loaded, obviously, in several
Iit were merely a book on
screen there would be little.
point in it, but this is quite
diflerent. The reason is this:
when you load the program
and whilst you are using it all
the normal Basic functions are
available to you!
The advantage of this is that
when the text explains, for
example, how to use the Print
command, you can try it
whilst the text is on screen
and check that you've got it
right before moving on.
Program Interactive Basic
Programming
Price — £995
Micro Spectrum
Supplier Eigen Software
45 Bancroft Road
Widnes
Cheshire WAB OLR
5D Software, Gavin Barker, 12 Fleming Field, Shotton Colliery,
County Durham, 0783 261405. Artic, Main Street, brandesburton,
Driffield, &)25 BRL, 0401 43553. Atlantis, 19 Prebend Street,
London М1 8PF, 01-226 6703. Automat
, 27 Highland Road,
Portsmouth, Hants, PO4 SDA, 0705 735242. Durell, Castle Lodge.
Castle Green, taunton ТАТ 4AB, 0823 54489. Eigen, 45 Bancroft
Road, Widnes, Cheshire, WAB OLR, 051-423 6201. English, Box 43,
manchester, M60 ЗАЧ, 061 835 1358. Infinite, 73 Acester Road,
Moseley,
ingham 13. Interceptor, Interceptor Micro's, Lindon
House, The Green, Tadley hampshire, 07356 71145. Level 9, 229
Hughenden Road, High Wycombe, Bucks НР13 5PG, 0494 26871
Microdeal, 41 Truro Road, St Austell, Cornwall, PL25 5JE, 0726
73456. Richardson, Instit. Conflict + Peace Rsch, Department of
Polityics, University of Lancaster LA1 4YF, 0524 65201. Zircon, 2
Wendling Rd, Sutton, Surtrey, 641 7102.
7-13 MARCH 1985
6
4 >.
Masterpieces
onsider the word ‘masterpiece’; а
word applied to certain paintings,
books, pieces of music. . . . but will
ме ever apply it to computer programs? Of
course we sometimes refer to such and such a
game as a ‘masterpiece’ — as a reviewer I'm.
more guilty than most - bu! we'd never
seriously suggest that Doomdazk's Revenge,
Kokotoni Wilf or any other favourite is on а
par with the Mona Lisa - would we?
English Literature has more than its share of
classics; Chaucer, Shakespeare, Dickens; we
never question the quality of their works,
‘They have lasting value, seem to reveal hid-
den truths about life, move us - and also
we've been taught that they're masterpieces
since we were kids,
This element of conditioning makes me
think that we should look again. Masterpiece -
the product of a master, but a master of an art
ог а master craftsman? We mustn't forget that
the above named trio of literary giants wrote
primarily to earn their livings, as did most
other published writers. There may be ge-
nius, but there's more hard graft; time spent
learning and practising the стай demonstrat-
ed so finely by our literary immortals. Genius
is the effective application of craft. Now the
idea of a masterpiece program seems less
unlikely. After all, computer writing in Basic
ог machine code, is the manipulation of lan-
guage, and that succession of binary digits is
no more abstract than the musician's crochets
and quavers, and to most people the two are
equally incomprehensible. Nobody questions
musical masterpieces because these dots and
squiggles on telegraph wires аге trans-
formed into a state which all but the tone deaf
understand - sound.
The translator is, of course, the musician, a
role the CPU takes in the computer, turning
electrical pulses into a form that can be widely
understood via a УРИ or speaker. That the
microprocessor is not subject to the whims of
the human performer leads to a more direct
transmission of the programmer's craft than
the composer's. It's possible to imagine a
future classroom in which the disassembly of a
1980's program is studied as closely as a
musical score: ‘Look how cleverly it jumps
here and so speeds sprite movement.’
Of course, increasingly often software is
produced by teams of programmers yet we
do presuppose just one ‘master’ because we
believe in that rare, individua! quality called
genius. Many still feel unhappy about classing
film as ‘high art’ and have to explain great-
ness in terms of the talents of one guiding
figure, the director, We like to particularise
and idolise people who produce master-
pieces; merely hyping programmers will not
fool people for long, but given great pro-
grams the public will discover their ‘master’
as surely as they did Dickens.
‘That many programs are written in-house
also goes against presupposition. The ‘mas-
ter’ is expected to create while starving in a
garret before finding a publisher, not pro-
duce to order. We happily ignore that the
impetus to write is often the need for money.
Every masterpiece is part of a commercial
system. However, writing teams such as Den-
ton Designs are a move towards apparent
autonomy of the author/s, and perhaps soft-
ware publishers will bid for program rights
much as book publishers do for best-sellers.
Despite this analysis I cannot say that I have
seen what I would call a software ‘master-
piece’. Some demonstrate brilliant craft, but
not one has moved or illuminated me. Howev-
er I'm sure that one will come, because it is
society that constructs the myth of the “master-
piece’ and once it has accepted the computer
it will feel able to judge its products.
Society it is that makes masterpieces, not
the craftsmen and women. Tell Shakespeare
that he was writing а masterpiece and he'd
probably have laughed into his ale before
dashing off another few lines of Hamlet.
John Minson
Rate of Growth
Puzzle № 148
Aquirus Variegata is a particularly unusual
species of tropical water-lily. It is of particular
interest to botanists because of its remarkably
constant rate of growth. For example, every
day, from 6 am to 6 pm when influenced by
the sun it increases in size by exactly 3% in
that time, but during the cooler nights (from 6
pm to ê am) it actually decreases 2%.
A large ornamental pond containing one of
these remarkable plants was measured and it
was found that the surface was exactly half
covered by the plant. This was observed at 6
am on the first of July. On what date will the.
lily have completely covered the pond?
Solution to Puzzle No 143
‘The simplest method of approach is to test
successive values of N in the range 465 — 1000
to determine if the difference between the
cube and the square for each value comprises
of the nine digits 1-9. As an approximate test,
the sums and the products of the digits are
taken and the answer printed if these result in
totals of 45 and 362880 respectively.
FOR М«455 TO 1000
LET CeNKNXN
LET S-N&N
LET Т=С-5
IF 72999999999 THEN STOP
LET Tea5TRS(T)
EECH
FOR F= 1 T0 9
92 (ЕТ A=A+VAL (MIDS (
199 LET РЕРЖУАЕ (MIDS(
110 NEXT Е
180 IF А=45 AND Р=362880 THEN PR
INT N
130 NEXT N
This is a particularly useful teat and it is
much quicker than comparing each digit in
the answer to determine if itis different from
the other eight digits.
Note that this technique is not infallible but it
will screen out most (or in this case, all) of the
impossible answers
‘Winner of Puzzle 143
The winner is ] F Hughes of Hellan, Denbigh,
Cywyd, who receives £10.
The Hackers
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Commodore 64 £9.95
Available shortly on Amstrad CPC 464 44 The Broadway, jerks. 0344 427317
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